210 HOME STUDIES IN NATURE. 



often agitated is almost a mystery. The rliizoma is not 

 creeping, as in the white water-lily, but always stands 

 in an upright position, and I have never found it more 

 than a foot in length ; the lower part rots away as 

 the plant extends upward. Each year a new circle 

 of leaves starts out above the old ones, these drop- 

 ping away, leaving the scars on the rhizoma; so, also, 

 a new set of roots starts just beneath the new leaves, 

 the old roots dying away like the leaves. This makes 

 the rhizoma a scarred, straight, underground stem, ap- 

 parently useless. 



In the larger plants it is a foot in length and six or 

 eight inches in circumference. After it has done its 

 work of supplying the plant with leaves and roots, this 

 seemingly worthless appendage performs new duties in 

 order to perpetuate its race. It sends out long white 

 runners, often a yard in length, and on the end of each 

 a little plant grows ; as soon as this plant is well started, 

 the runner continues, and throws out another plant, the 

 same as the strawberry, only this is on a much grander 

 scale. Sometimes as many as four runners are attached 

 to. one rhizoma, and three or four small plants strung 

 along each runner. As soon as the new plants become 

 well established, the runner decays, and the little ones 

 are now able to stand by themselves, and each has an 

 independent existence, repeating the history of its par- 

 ent. But this is not the only way that the lily is per- 

 petuated : it also forms small bulbs or bulblets, which 

 drop into the soft mud and take root. 



