THE BULB BOOK 



give rise to a numerous progeny, and occupy far more space in the 

 garden than was originally allotted them. 



As we shall see later on when discussing seeds, the production of 

 these offsets are of great value to the gardener. Many bulbous and 

 tuberous plants produce very little or no seed, consequently it would 

 take many years to raise a large stock of plants of these were it not 

 that they lent theipselves readily to other methods of reproduction. 



It may be taken as a general rule that bulbous and tuberous 

 plants are raised by the readiest means at hand, and this happens in 

 most cases to be " offsets." Every offset, large or small, if taken off 

 at the right time and planted properly, has the makings of a new, 

 complete, and independent flowering plant in it. As a rule these 

 offsets are attached close to the parent bulb corm, or tuber; but 

 occasionally, as in Tulip^ and in Montbretias, and in some Liliums, 

 they are produced at the end of a creeping runner-like body, or along 

 a rhizome. This accounts for what is known as "dropping" in 

 Tulips, in some cases of which the offsets are several inches lower 

 down than the parent bulb. 



As all offsets are not of equal size and value, they should be graded, 

 the largest and best being planted in beds by themselves, the medium 

 and smaller ones (which may take two or three years longer to reach 

 the flowering stage) being also placed in special beds until they are 

 large enough to be again transplanted. 



SPAWN or CLOVES.— Some plants, such as the Gladiolus, not 

 only produce a few new corms from the older shrivelled ones, but 

 also several much smaller bodies around the base. These are 

 popularly called "spawn," or individually "cloves" (see Fig. 6), 

 and are akin vegetatively to the bulbils borne in the axils of the 

 leaves of some Liliums. These cloves may be stored away till 

 spring-time in sandy soil, and then sown in special beds of gritty 

 mould and covered with about 1 inch of soil. At the end of two 

 or three years they will have attained the size of flowering corms, 

 and may then be treated like those. 



SCALES.— Apart from the offsets of the bulbs of Liliums, many 

 of the fleshy scale-leaves are broken away or detached in the process 

 of lifting and replanting ; each one of these scales may be utilised to 

 produce a new bulb. If stuck more or less vertically into rich and 

 very gritty soil, a little bud is soon produced at the base. In due 

 course this little bud swells into a little bulb, and at the end of three 

 or four years it will attain the flowering stage. Very often the 

 scales are simply covered with an inch or two of sandy soil in a 



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