198 
Journal oj Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXX, No. 3 
The internodes tend to increase in 
length acropetally, but in the apical 
region they become shorter again. The 
nodes are commonly thinner than the 
Internodes. Above them, protected by 
the sheath, is the Keimring, which 
bears a bud and several rows of root 
primordia. All parts of the stem, with 
the exception of the Keimring, are cov¬ 
ered with wax. In old stems these wax 
deposits peel off in places, thereby 
The leaves are two-ranked and paral¬ 
lel-veined. Each leaf consists of two 
parts—the sheath and the blade. The 
sheath envelopes the stem with the 
margins overlapping, and as a result of 
this arrangement one leaf will form a 
right, the next in succession a left spiral. 
The sheath is widest at the base and 
gradually narrows, reaching its smallest 
diameter where it merges into the 
blade. The base of the sheath is swol- 
Fig. 1.—Diagrammatic drawing of part of stool of large sugar cane. New secondary and tertiary 
stems arise from the buds of the underground stem 
often giving the surface of the cane a 
peculiar striation. 
The buds in this variety appear as 
appressed conchate structures of vary¬ 
ing form. They are slightly sunken in 
the stem, as indicated by a longitudinal 
groove, which only gradually loses it¬ 
self in the upper part of the internode. 
In the lower, more mature parts of the 
stem the buds become more prominent, 
and the tips bend away from the axis 
instead of lying next to it. 
len, forming a pseudojoint. At the 
junction of sheath and blade a similar 
joint is formed. On the inside of this 
blade joint there is a membranous, hya¬ 
line appendage, the ligule. The sheath 
has an average length of about 34 cm. 
and a width which is directly correlated 
with the thickness of the stem. In a 
given region the sheath is thickest at 
the middle, becoming gradually thinner 
toward the margins. The surface of 
the sheath is covered with hairs of 
