LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY GREENE 77 



to indicate its many morphological diversities; and here not only 

 classifies but also names several of the classes. He acts as if he 

 thought the language of science would be defective if such dis- 

 similar things as an oak log, a mullein stalk, and a rye straw all were 

 to bear the name of stem. In practice, therefore, he called the 

 stem of a tree its trun k. areXexos, the light hollow or pithy stem 

 of all grassy and reedy things was a culm, ndXafxogj thus the ordi- 

 nary word stejtnjoiLSta^ navXas, was mostly limited to designate 

 those of what we know as^herbaceous exogens ; and so our modern 

 botany has these three kinds of stems as designated by Theo- 

 phrastus. Culm is even very manifestly a modification of the 

 Greek kalamos. Embracing as it does almost all endogenous 

 stems, it is more comprehensive than the English words straw, 

 reed, and rush all combined; and in our botany we were obliged to 

 borrow and make over just the Greek term which Theophrastus 

 invented — unless he, too, borrowed it; or, what amounts to the 

 same, extended the use and gave a new and scientific meaning to 

 an old and familiar term. As to their forms and modes of growth 

 he distinguishes many kinds of stem among herbaceous plants. 

 And, as woody growths are classified as trees and shrubs, according 

 as their trunks are one or several from each root, so the herbaceous 

 are distinguished as one-stemmed or many-stemmed. The nu- 

 merous kinds of bulbous plants both wild and cultivated he under- 

 stands as being invariably one-stemmed, and therefore does not 

 speak of this in his descriptions of such; but of other herbaceous 

 growths his custom is to mention, in his descriptions of them, 

 whether the root sends up a single stem or many. It is a dis- 

 tinction of importance to phytography; and if the anthological 

 extremists of one and two centuries ago thought it superfluous, 

 and neglected it, its value is now again beginning to be clearly 

 seen and freely admitted. Again, herbaceous st ems, are upright, 

 or reclining, trailing, climbing, oj- twining. ^ He also has observed 

 that one-stemTtiied herbs are apt to be erect, the many-stemmed 

 otherwise; or at least that the reclining or trailing are always 

 many-stemmed. Among upright stems he perceives how different 

 those of the umbellifers are from most others in that they are 

 fluted, or at least striate, and, giving these and all their like a 

 name that really points to their anatomical structure rather than 

 to their external appearance, he denominates all such plants 

 nervose-stemmed. Through having missed the discovery of the 



1 Hist., Book vii, ch. 8. 



