62 BRITISH PLANTS 



In the spring, when the buds open, the bud-scales fall 

 off, leaving scars on the shoots. The shoot does not 

 elongate in the region of these scars, and if we examine 

 an old twig we can, by noting the places where these 

 scars are close together in a series of rings, determine how 

 old the twig is, and how much it has grown each year. 



Geophilous Plants. — -This term, which means earth- 

 loving (Gr. ge, earth ; pMleo, I love), is applied to those 

 herbaceous perennials which, after flowering, die down 

 to the ground. During winter either nothing at all shows 

 above ground or a rosette of closely-packed radical leaves 

 lie just on the surface of the soU. The important part is 

 underground. The tulip hibernates in a bulb (p. 156), 

 the crocus in a corm (p. 158), the meadow-saxifrage in 

 bulbils (p. 160), the potato in tubers (p. 111). The fern 

 dies down to a short, thick, unbranched, erect rhizome, 

 or "root-stock " (p. 110) ; the dog's-mercury, coltsfoot, and 

 couch-grass to long branching rhizomes (p. 110). All 

 these perennating* organs are stem - structures, well 

 stored with food, from whose buds arise the shoots which 

 appear above ground the following spring. These aerial 

 leafy shoots are hygrophytic, mesophytic, or xerophytic, 

 according to the water-conditions which prevail during 

 the summer : 



1. Many marsh-plants are hygrophilous geophytes, 

 dying down in the winter to rhizomes which hibernate 

 in the mud — e.g., reeds, sedges, horsetails, reed-mace 

 (Typha), common reed {Phragmites), etc. Plants living 

 in moist shade Hke wood-sorrel and the moschatel (Adoxa) 

 may be regarded as less pronounced hygrophilous geo- 

 phytes. 



2. The majority of our herbaceous perennials show no 

 decided summer habit, and are therefore mesophUous 

 geophytes : white deadnettle, toadflax, mint, chervil, 

 tulip, crocus, etc. 



3. A few are even xerophytic in the summer — e.g., 

 Sedum Rhodiola, a large-leaved alpine stonecrop, and 

 Psamma, the sand-dime grass, etc. 



Bulbs. — As an example of a pronounced geophyte, we 



will take a bulbous plant. If a narcissus or tulip be dug 



up in September, it will be seen that a new leafy shoot is 



packed away in the bulb in the form of a large bud 



* Latin, perennis = lasting. 



