IV 
OUTLINES OF BOTANY. 
§ 2. The Root. 
18. Roots ordinarily produce neither buds, leaves, nor flowers. Their branches, 
calledyiAres when slender and long, proceed irregularly from any part of their surface. 
19. Although roots proceed usually from the base of the stem or stock, they may 
also be produced from the base of any bud, especially if the bud lie along the ground, 
or is otherwise placed by nature or art in circumstances favourable for their deve- 
lopment, or indeed occasionally from almost any part of the plant. They are then 
often distinguished as adventitious , but this term is by some applied to all roots which 
are not in prolongation of the original radicle. 
20. Roots are 
fibrous, when they consist chiefly of slender fibres. 
tuberous, when either the main root or its branches are thiokened into one or 
more short fleshy or woody masses called tubers (25). 
taproots, when the main root descends perpendicularly into the earth, emitting 
only very small fibrous branches. 
21. The stock of a herbaceous perennial, or the lower part of the stem of an annual 
or perennial, or the lowest branches of a plant, are sometimes underground and assume 
the appearance of a root. They then take the name of rhizome. The rhizome may 
always be distinguished from the true root by the presence or production of one or 
more buds, or leaves, or scales. 
§ 3. The Stock. 
22. The Stock of a herbaceous perennial, in its most complete state, includes a 
small portion of the summits of the previous year’s roots, as well as of the base of the 
previous year’s stems. Such stocks will increase yearly, so as at length to form dense 
tufts. They will often preserve through the winter a few leaves, amongst which are 
placed the buds which grow out into stems the following year, whilst the under side of 
the stock emits new’ roots from or amongst the remains of the old ones. These peren- 
nial stocks only differ from the permanent base of an undershrub in the shortness of 
the perennial part of the stems and in their texture usually less woody. 
23. In some perennials, however, the stock consists merely of a branch, which pro- 
ceeds in autumu from the base of the stem either aboveground or underground, and 
produces one or more buds. This branch, or a portion of it, alone survives the winter. 
In the following year its buds produce the new stem and roots, whilst the rest of the 
plant, even the branch on which these buds were formed, has died away. These annual 
stocks, called sometimes hybernacula, offsets, or stolons , keep up the communication 
between the annual stem and root of one year and those of the following year, thus 
forming altogether a perennial plant. 
24. The stock, whether annual or perennial, is often entirely underground or root- 
like. This is the rootstock, to which some botanists limit the meaning of the term 
rhizome. When the stock is ent irely root-like, it is popularly called the cro wn of the root. 
25. The term tuber is applied to a short, thick, more or less succulent rootstock or 
rhizome, as well as to a root of that shape (20), although some botanists propose to re- 
strict its meaning to the one or to the other. An Orchis tuber, called by some a knob, 
is an annual tuberous rootstock with one bud at the top. A potato is an annual tu- 
berous rootstock with several buds. 
26. A bulb is a stock of a shape approaching to globular, usually rather conical 
above and flattened underneath, in which the bud or buds are concealed, or nearly so, 
under scales. These scales are the more or less thickened bases of the decayed leaves 
of the preceding year, or of the undeveloped leaves of the future year, or of both. 
Bulbs are annual or perennial, usually underground or close to the ground, but occa- 
sionally buds in the axils of the upper leaves become transformed into bulbs. Bulbs 
are said to be scaly when their scales are thick and loosely imbricated, tunicated when 
the scales are thinner, broader, and closely rolled round each other in concentric layers. 
27. A corrn is a tuberous rootstock, usually annual, shaped like a bulb, but in which 
the bud or buds are not covered by scales, or of which the scales are very thin and 
membranous. 
