SOME TLANT BIOGRAPHIES. 215 



springing of saplings from the roots or stem, 

 the production of runners, the division of bulbs, 

 and the rooting of suckers. I will therefore give 

 here a fev^ select instances of these frequent 

 incidents in the life-history of various species. 



The tiger-lilies of our gardens produce little 

 dark buds, often called bulbils, in the angles of 

 their foliage leaves. These buds at last fall off 

 and root themselves in the soil, forming to all 

 appearance independent plants. Much the 

 same thing happens with many English wild- 

 flowers. For example, in the plant known 'as 

 coral-root (allied to the cuckoo-flower) little bud- 

 bulbs are formed in the angles of the leaves, 

 which drop on the damp soil of the woods 

 where the plant grows, and there develop into 

 new individuals. In this last-named case the 

 plant seldom sets its fruit at all, the reproduction 

 being almost entirely carried on by means of the 

 bulbils. Such instances suggest to us the 

 pregnant idea that a seed is nothing more than 

 a bud or young shoot, to whose making two 

 separate parents have contributed. There is, in 

 short, no essential diiTerence between the two 

 processes of growth and reproduction. 



Again, in the common lesser celandine the 

 root-stock emits a large number of tiny pill-like 

 tubers, which grow and lay by rich material 

 underground (derived from the leaves) during 

 the summer season. In the succeeding spring, 

 however, each of these tubers develops again 

 into a separate plant, in a way with which 

 the familiar instance of the potato has made us 

 fftmiUar. In the crocus, once more, and many 



