BULBS AND BULBLETS 91 



buds have formed according to the general rule; 

 only, as they are destined to develop by themselves, 

 they have stored up supplies in their thickened 

 scales, and that is what makes them unusually large. 

 Split one of them lengthwise. Under a tough sheath 

 you will find an enormous fleshy mass forming al- 

 most the whole of the bud. That is the storehouse. 

 With such supplies of food the bud is well able to 

 take care of itself. And, in fact, when a market- 

 gardener wishes to raise a crop of garlic, he does 

 not have recourse to the seed; that would take too 

 long. He turns his attention to the buds; that is 

 to say, he plants in the ground, one by one, the bulb- 

 lets of which the heads of garlio are composed. 

 Each of these bulblets, sustained at first by its own 

 reserves of food, puts forth roots and leaves and be- 

 comes a complete garlic plant. 



"From the bulblet to the bulb, from garlic to an 

 onion, there is but a single step. Let us split an 

 onion in two from top to bottom. We shall find it 

 composed of a succession of fleshy scales compactly 

 fitted together. In the heart 

 of this cluster of succulent 

 scales, which are nothing but 

 leaves so modified as to form a 

 food-storehouse, are found 

 other leaves of normal shape 

 and green color. An onion, then, is a bud pro- 

 visioned for an independent life by the conversion 

 of its outside leaves into fleshy scales ; and it is called 

 a bulb, not a bulblet, because of its size, the latter 



