STORAGE ROOMS 
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become so shady that they could not get any 
light for their work. A familiar flower that 
uses its bulb to help it grow in this way is the 
dogtooth violet. 
A bulb is really an underground bud. It is 
made of thick overlapping scales. It can send 
up a shoot that becomes the new plant, and it 
can also produce new bulbs that grow out of 
the sides of the old one. Late in the summer 
these side bulbs can be pulled off and planted. 
The old one can also be used again. Some 
kinds of onions form bulbs above the ground. 
They have little bulblets in place of flowers. 
These are the “onion sets” that are bought for 
vegetable gardens. 
There is another reason why bulbs are planted 
instead of seeds. Tulips, for example, do not 
grow from seed in the United States because 
the climate is not right. They do nicely in 
Holland; therefore, the gardeners in Holland 
raise the plants and send the bulbs to this coun¬ 
try. Very often a plant will grow from a bulb 
in a climate where the seed will not do well at 
Tulips grow 
best from 
bulbs 
