THE STEM 105 
grow up into the light and bear the flowers. As this 
grows, using the reserves by which it is surrounded, it 
produces at its base a swelling which forms the next 
season’s corm. The exhausted corm of the previous 
season is always to be found below the one that bears 
the flower. In the corm, too, young corms are found 
as buds in the leaf axils, and vegetatively produce 
new plants. 
Stools are formed in the canna. These consist of 
the fleshy roots together with the bases of the stem. 
By splitting the stool of a canna new individuals may 
be obtained. 
Vegetative reproduction, we have seen, may be 
brought about in various ways: by division of rhizomes, 
stools, and tubers; by severing from the parent plant 
stolons, runners, off-sets and suckers; by breaking off 
the buds of bulbs and corms. Many plants, too, are 
propagated by euttings. Thus slips are cut from the 
branches of geraniums, currants, and roses, and these, 
placed in the ground, produce roots from the nodes 
and establish themselves as independent plants. 
Bubs. 
A bud is an undeveloped branch, in which the nodes 
are crowded together in such a way that the young 
leaves overlap and protect the growing point. When 
such buds are produced in the axils of the leaves they 
are termed axillary, and when at the tip of the stem 
or branch they are called terminal. Adventitious buds 
may, under special circumstances, spring from any part 
of the plant that produces them. When a willow tree 
is lopped, the stem at onee sends forth a number of 
adventitious buds that produce a tufted crown of new 
branches. Where plants have been badly whipped by 
the wind, or have had their leaves destroyed by insect 
or fungoid pests, this power of producing new buds: 
clearly gives them a great advantage in the struggle 
