LIFE HISTORY OF TIMOTHY 29 
from vertical to horizontal and are commonly in close contact with 
the surface of the soil. 
it was observed in 1917 in a new meadow which had been sown in 
September, 1916, that some of the haplocorms were partially and on 
a small proportion of the shoots were entirely below the surface of 
the soil. A considerable proportion of the shoots in this meadow had 
grown directly from seeds. When a timothy seed germinates at 
some distance below the surface of the soil, the base of the primary 
shoot and of the haplocorm which develops on it, instead of being 
entirely above the soil surface, as on the shoots of older plants, 
frequently is at a slight distance below it. 
In some of the other species of Phleum there is usually an enlarge- 
ment of the lower internodes of the shoots, which is apparently 
the same as the haplocorm of P. pratense. On shoots of Melica 
c/eyeri Munro there are enlargements of internodes at the bases which 
resemble the haplocorm of timothy. Different species of several 
other genera of grasses have enlargements or swellings of different 
kinds at the bases of the shoots (U, p. 125-138; 18, p. 113). 
NAMES WHICH HAVE BEEN APPLIED TO THE HAPLOCORM 
The enlarged basal internodes of timothy shoots have been desig- 
nated in botanical and in agricultural literature by various names. 
The name which has been most commonly used is bulb (37, p. 8; 38, 
;h Jfl-60). The term tuber has also been applied to this part of the 
timothy shoot (i, p. 76), The name corm has sometimes been used 
(l.p.76). 
Neither of the names bulb or tuber used in its proper sense can be 
applied to the enlarged basal internodes of timothy shoots. A bulb 
is composed of the basal portions of leaves, which inclose a bud ; the 
swelling at the basal part of a timothy shoot is composed of one or 
more internodes. A tuber is a part of an underground stem ; the 
enlarged parts of timothy shoots normally grow above the surface of 
the soil. 
A corm is defined by Jackson as follows (21, p. 92) : "A bulblike 
fleshy stem or base of a stem ; a ' solid ' bulb." The swelling at the 
base of timothy shoots is a short, bulblike, fleshy part of the stem, 
but it differs from typical corms. The corm of a crocus or a gladio- 
lus terminates in a bud, through which reproduction occurs : in tim- 
othy, vegetative reproduction occurs through buds in the axils of 
leaves, at nodes which may or may not be adjacent to the haplocorm. 
The roots of crocus or gladiolus grow from nodes at the base of 
the corm; on a timothy shoot the roots grow from the nodes of the 
proaxis. Crocus and gladiolus corms, which are generally regarded 
as resting organs in which nutrients have been stored, are composed 
of many short internodes ; the enlargement at the base of a timothy 
shoot, the function of which has not yet been very clearly demon- 
strated, is most frequently composed of a single internode. The 
name corm. therefore, can hardly be properly applied to the en- 
largement at the base of timothy shoots. 
Since no botanical term has been found which precisely describes 
the enlargement at the base of timothy shoots, the term haplocorm 
