470 INTERNATIONAL GARDEN CLUB 
The dropper is anchored at the old level by the roots of the 
plant and the pressure of the soil above on the old bulb. Its 
own downward growth exerts sufficient force to rupture the 
scales and to burrow down into the soil. At first the dropper 
is somewhat conical at its lower end. Most of the enlargement 
of the new bulb occurs after it reaches a lower level when it 
also assumes the shape and position cl teristic of tulip 
bulbs. 
As far as the writer’s observations go, flowering bulbs and 
the bulbs immediately lateral to the main bud have not bur- 
rowed to lower levels. The burrowing bud has always been 
the main bud in a vegetative plant and it has been directly 
enclosed in the vegetative leaf whose base became a part of 
the dropper. Frequently small lateral bulbs form in the axils 
of the old scales as is shown in figure 1 at c. Cases where 
the lateral buds also developed into droppers have, however, 
been reported in certain species of tulips. 
Droppers of the tulip are to be distinguished from the so- 
called offsets, a small one of which is shown in figures 6, 7 and 
9. These offsets are lateral branches which develop from the 
stem at points outside of the living scales. They are evidently 
developed from adventitious buds or from axillary buds that 
have remained dormant for a time. 
Occasionally a dropper does not grow vertically downward 
but grows somewhat horizontally or even upward. A drawing 
of such a plant is shown in figure 11. At the end of a season 
of growth the bulbs of such droppers may lie on one side or 
even be placed upside down. In such droppers the relative 
growth of the leaf and stem portions is irregular and not well 
coérdinated. 
Plantings have been made to study the occurrence of drop- 
pers and to test the influence of depth of planting on their 
development. Bulbs weighing from 2 to over 40 grams were 
sorted into grades by weight. A set of each grade was planted 
at depths of 2, 3, 4, and 6 inches. Nearly all of the larger 
bulbs bloomed and produced new lateral bulbs of several sizes 
while the bulbs of smaller sizes were, as a rule, vegetative only. 
