KINDS OF STEMS AND BRANCHES. 39 



99- A Stolon is a branch which reclines on the ground, or bends over to it, and 

 strikes root (Fig. 74). Currant-bushes spread naturally by stolons, and so does 

 White Clover. The gardener imitates the process where it does not naturally 

 occur, or facilitates it where it does, by bending branches to the ground, and pinning 

 them down, when they strike root where they are covered by the soil, and then the 

 branch, having leaves and roots of its own, may be separated as an independent 

 plant. In this way the gardener multiplies many plants by layering which he 

 cannot so readily propagate by seed. 



100. A Runner (Fig. 74) is a very slender, thread-like, leafless stolon, much like 

 a tendril, lying on the ground, and rooting and budding at the point ; so giving rise 

 to a new plant at some distance from the parent, and connected with it during the 

 first year. But the runner dies in winter and leaves the young plant independent. 

 The Strawberry-plant affords the most familiar illustration of runners. Each plant 

 or offshoot, as soon as established, sends out runners of its own, which make new 

 plants at their tip. In this way a single Strawberry-plant produces a numerous 

 progeny in the course of the summer, and establishes them at convenient dis- 

 tances all around. 



101. A Sucker (Fig. 74) is a branch which springs from a parent stem under 

 ground, where it makes roots of its own, while farther on it rises above ground into 

 a leafy stem, and becomes an independent plant whenever the connection with the 

 parent stem dies or is cut off. It is by suckers that Rose and Raspberry bushes 

 multiply and spread so "by the root," as is generally said. But that these subter- 

 ranean shoots are stems, and not roots (though they produce roots), will plainly 

 appear by uncovering them. 



102. An Offset is a short branch, next the ground or below its surface, like a 

 short stolon or sucker, bearing a tuft of leaves at the end, and taking root where this 



