BULBS, BULBLETS AND BUDS 355 



plates. That is, the lily bulb is a type of a 

 scaly bulb, and the onion of a laminate or tuni- 

 cated bulb. 



441a. One of these onions has a very thick neck or stalk and 

 a comparatively small bulb. The top has grown at the expense of 

 the bottom, and the bulb is worthless for market. Such onions 

 are known as scullions. 



442. The onion produces flowers in umbels. 

 Fig. 371 is a bunch of "top onions," in which 

 bulbs (or bulblets) are borne in the flower -cluster. 

 If the pupU examines such a cluster he may find, 

 as in this picture, an umbel bearing flowers, well- 

 formed bulblets, and leaves springing from imper- 

 fect or scullion -like bulblets. In other words, 

 flowers have been transformed into purely vegeta- 

 tive parts. (Compare Obs. xxxvii.) 



442a. The pupil may have access to the tiger lily, which bears 

 bulblets in the axils of the leaves. Top onions may be had of any 

 seedsman. 



443. If bulbs are buds, then we should expect 

 to find various intermediate forms. The house -leek 

 (better known as hen -and -chickens, old-man-and- 

 woman) produces dense rosettes of leaves on the 

 ground (Fig. 372). This rosette is structurally a 

 loose, open -topped bulb. The young rosettes, or 

 offsets, are produced upon short stems from the 

 under side of the rosette, rather than by the 



