Section Vi. Stems.

88. =The Stem= is the axis of the plant, the part which bears all the other organs. Branches are secondary stems, that is, stems growing out of stems. The stem at the very beginning produces roots, in most plants a single root from the base of the embryo-stem, or caulicle. As this root becomes a descending axis, so the stem, which grows in the opposite direction is called the ascending axis. Rising out of the soil, the stem bears leaves; and leaf-bearing is the particular characteristic of the stem. But there are forms of stems that remain underground, or make a part of their growth there. These do not bear leaves, in the common sense; yet they bear rudiments of leaves, or what answers to leaves, although not in the form of foliage. The so-called stemless or acaulescent plants are those which bear no obvious stem (caulis) above ground, but only flower-stalks, and the like.

89. =Stems above ground=, through differences in duration, texture, and size, form herbs, shrubs, trees, etc., or in other terms are

Herbaceous, dying down to the ground every year, or after blossoming.

Suffrutescent, slightly woody below, there surviving from year to year.

Suffruticose or Frutescent, when low stems are decidedly woody below, but herbaceous above.

Fruticose or Shrubby, woody, living from year to year, and of considerable size,--not, however, more than three or four times the height of a man.

Arborescent, when tree-like in appearance or mode of growth, or approaching a tree in size.

Arboreous, when forming a proper tree-trunk.

90. As to direction taken in growing, stems may, instead of growing upright or erect, be

Diffuse, that is, loosely spreading in all directions.

Declined, when turned or bending over to one side.

Decumbent, reclining on the ground, as if too weak to stand.

Assurgent or Ascending, rising obliquely upwards.

Procumbent or Prostrate, lying flat on the ground from the first.

Creeping or Repent, prostrate on or just beneath the ground, and striking root, as does the White Clover, the Partridge-berry, etc.

Climbing or Scandent, ascending by clinging to other objects for support, whether by tendrils, as do the Pea, Grape-Vine, and Passion-flower and Virginia Creeper (Fig. 92, 93); by their twisting leaf-stalks, as the Virgin's Bower; or by rootlets, like the Ivy, Poison Ivy, and Trumpet Creeper.

Twining or Voluble, when coiling spirally around other stems or supports; like the Morning-Glory (Fig. 90) and the Hop.

91. Certain kinds of stems or branches, appropriated to special uses, have received distinct substantive names; such as the following:

92. =A Culm=, or straw-stem, such as that of Grasses and Sedges.

93. =A Caudex= is the old name for such a peculiar trunk as a Palm-stem; it is also used for an upright and thick rootstock.

94. =A Sucker= is a branch rising from stems under ground. Such are produced abundantly by the Rose, Raspberry, and other plants said to multiply "by the root." If we uncover them, we see at once the great difference between these subterranean branches and real roots. They are only creeping branches under ground. Remarking how the upright shoots from these branches become separate plants, simply by the dying off of the connecting under-ground stems, the gardener expedites the result by cutting them through with his spade. That is, he propagates the plant "by division."

95. =A Stolon= is a branch from above ground, which reclines or becomes prostrate and strikes root (usually from the nodes) wherever it rests on the soil. Thence it may send up a vigorous shoot, which has roots of its own, and becomes an independent plant when the connecting part dies, as it does after a while. The Currant and the Gooseberry naturally multiply in this way, as well as by suckers (which are the same thing, only the connecting part is concealed under ground). Stolons must have suggested the operation of layering by bending down and covering with soil branches which do not naturally make stolons; and after they have taken root, as they almost always will, the gardener cuts through the connecting stem, and so converts a rooting branch into a separate plant.

96. =An Offset= is a short stolon, or sucker, with a crown of leaves at the end, as in the Houseleek (Fig. 91), which propagates abundantly in this way.

97. =A Runner=, of which the Strawberry presents the most familiar and characteristic example, is a long and slender, tendril-like stolon, or branch from next the ground, destitute of conspicuous leaves. Each runner of the Strawberry, after having grown to its full length, strikes root from the tip, which fixes it to the ground, then forms a bud there, which develops into a tuft of leaves, and so gives rise to a new plant, which sends out new runners to act in the same way. In this manner a single Strawberry plant will spread over a large space, or produce a great number of plants, in the course of the summer, all connected at first by the slender runners; but these die in the following winter, if not before, and leave the plants as so many separate individuals.

98. =Tendrils= are branches of a very slender sort, like runners, not destined like them for propagation, and therefore always destitute of buds or leaves, being intended only for climbing. Simple tendrils are such as those of Passion-flowers (Fig. 92). Compound or branching tendrils are borne by the Cucumber and Pumpkin, by the Grape-Vine, Virginia Creeper, etc.

99. A tendril commonly grows straight and outstretched until it reaches some neighboring support, such as a stem, when its apex hooks around it to secure a hold; then the whole tendril shortens itself by coiling up spirally, and so draws the shoot of the growing plant nearer to the supporting object. But the tendrils of the Virginia Creeper (Ampelopsis, Fig. 93), as also the shorter ones of the Japanese species, effect the object differently, namely, by expanding the tips of the tendrils into a flat disk, with an adhesive face. This is applied to the supporting object, and it adheres firmly; then a shortening of the tendril and its branches by coiling brings up the growing shoot close to the support. This is an adaptation for climbing mural rocks or walls, or the trunks of trees, to which ordinary tendrils are unable to cling. The Ivy and Poison Ivy attain the same result by means of aerial rootlets (78).

100. Some tendrils are leaves or parts of leaves, as those of the Pea (Fig. 35). The nature of the tendril is known by its position. A tendril from the axil of a leaf, like that of Passion-flowers (Fig. 92) is of course a stem, i. e. a branch. So is one which terminates a stem, as in the Grape-Vine.

101. =Spines= or =Thorns= (Fig. 95, 96) are commonly stunted and hardened branches or tips of stems or branches, as are those of Hawthorn, Honey-Locust, etc. In the Pear and Sloe all gradations occur between spines and spine-like (spinescent) branches. Spines may be reduced and indurated leaves; as in the Barberry, where their nature is revealed by their situation, underneath an axillary bud. But prickles, such as those of Blackberry and Roses, are only excrescences of the bark, and not branches.

102. Equally strange forms of stems are characteristic of the Cactus family (Fig. 111). These may be better understood by comparison with

103. =Subterranean Stems and Branches.= These are very numerous and various; but they are commonly overlooked, or else are confounded with roots. From their situation they are out of ordinary sight; but they will well repay examination. For the vegetation that is carried on under ground is hardly less varied or important than that above ground. All their forms may be referred to four principal kinds: namely, the Rhizoma (Rhizome) or Rootstock, the Tuber, the Corm or solid bulb, and the true Bulb.

104. =The Rootstock, or Rhizoma=, in its simplest form, is merely a creeping stem or branch growing beneath the surface of the soil, or partly covered by it. Of this kind are the so-called creeping, running, or scaly roots, such as those by which the Mint (Fig. 97), the Couch-grass, or Quick-grass, and many other plants, spread so rapidly and widely,--"by the root," as it is said. That these are really stems, and not roots, is evident from the way in which they grow; from their consisting of a succession of joints; and from the leaves which they bear on each node, in the form of small scales, just like the lowest ones on the upright stem next the ground. They also produce buds in the axils of these scales, showing the scales to be leaves; whereas real roots bear neither leaves nor axillary buds. Placed as they are in the damp and dark soil, such stems naturally produce roots, just as the creeping stem does where it lies on the surface of the ground.

105. It is easy to see why plants with these running rootstocks take such rapid and wide possession of the soil, and why they are so hard to get rid of. They are always perennials; the subterranean shoots live over the first winter, if not longer, and are provided with vigorous buds at every joint. Some of these buds grow in spring into upright stems, bearing foliage, to elaborate nourishment, and at length produce blossoms for reproduction by seed; while many others, fed by nourishment supplied from above, form a new generation of subterranean shoots; and this is repeated over and over in the course of the season or in succeeding years. Meanwhile, as the subterranean shoots increase in number, the older ones, connecting the successive growths, die off year by year, liberating the already rooted side-branches as so many separate plants; and so on indefinitely. Cutting these running rootstocks into pieces, therefore, by the hoe or the plough, far from destroying the plant, only accelerates the propagation; it converts one many-branched plant into a great number of separate individuals. Cutting into pieces only multiplies the pest; for each piece (Fig. 98) is already a plantlet, with its roots and with a bud in the axil of its scale-like leaf (either latent or apparent), and with prepared nourishment enough to develop this bud into a leafy stem; and so a single plant is all the more speedily converted into a multitude. Whereas, when the subterranean parts are only roots, cutting away the stem completely destroys the plant, except in the rather rare cases where the root freely produces adventitious buds.

106. Rootstocks are more commonly thickened by the storing up of considerable nourishing matter in their tissue. The common species of Iris (Fig. 164) in the gardens have stout rootstocks, which are only partly covered by the soil, and which bear foliage-leaves instead of mere scales, closely covering the upper part, while the lower produces roots. As the leaves die, year by year, and decay, a scar left in the form of a ring marks the place where each leaf was attached, that is, marks so many nodes, separated by very short internodes.

107. Some rootstocks are marked with large round scars of a different sort, like those of the Solomon's Seal (Fig. 99), which gave this name to the plant, from their looking somewhat like the impression of a seal upon wax. Here the rootstock sends up every spring an herbaceous stalk or stem, which bears the foliage and flowers, and dies in autumn. The seal is the circular scar left by the death and separation of the base of the stout stalk from the living rootstock. As but one of these is formed each year, they mark the limits of a year's growth. The bud at the end of the rootstock in the figure (which was taken in summer) will grow the next spring into the stalk of the season, which, dying in autumn, will leave a similar scar, while another bud will be formed farther on, crowning the ever-advancing summit or growing end of the stem.

108. As each year's growth of stem makes its own roots, it soon becomes independent of the older parts. And after a certain age, a portion annually dies off behind, about as fast as it increases at the growing end, death following life with equal and certain step, with only a narrow interval. In vigorous plants of Solomon's Seal or Iris, the living rootstock is several inches or a foot in length; while in the short rootstock of Trillium or Birthroot (Fig. 100) life is reduced to a narrower span.

109. An upright or short rootstock, like this of Trillium, is commonly called a CAUDEX (93); or when more shortened and thickened it would become a corm.

110. =A Tuber= may be understood to be a portion of a rootstock thickened, and with buds (eyes) on the sides. Of course, there are all gradations between a tuber and a rootstock. Helianthus tuberosus, the so-called Jerusalem Artichoke (Fig. 101), and the common Potato, are typical and familiar examples of the tuber. The stalks by which the tubers are attached to the parent stem are at once seen to be different from the roots, both in appearance and manner of growth. The scales on the tubers are the rudiments of leaves; the eyes are the buds in their axils. The Potato-plant has three forms of branches: 1. Those that bear ordinary leaves expanded in the air, to digest what they gather from it and what the roots gather from the soil, and convert it into nourishment. 2. After a while a second set of branches at the summit of the plant bear flowers, which form fruit and seed out of a portion of the nourishment which the leaves have prepared. 3. But a larger part of this nourishment, while in a liquid state, is carried down the stem, into a third sort of branches under ground, and accumulated in the form of starch at their extremities, which become tubers, or depositories of prepared solid food,--just as in the Turnip, Carrot, and Dahlia (Fig. 83-87), it is deposited in the root. The use of the store of food is obvious enough. In the autumn the whole plant dies, except the seeds (if it formed them) and the tubers; and the latter are left disconnected in the ground. Just as that small portion of nourishing matter which is deposited in the seed feeds the embryo when it germinates, so the much larger portion deposited in the tuber nourishes its buds, or eyes, when they likewise grow, the next spring, into new plants. And the great supply enables them to shoot with a greater vigor at the beginning, and to produce a greater amount of vegetation than the seedling plant could do in the same space of time; which vegetation in turn may prepare and store up, in the course of a few weeks or months, the largest quantity of solid nourishing material, in a form most available for food. Taking advantage of this, man has transported the Potato from the cool Andes of Chili to other cool climates, and makes it yield him a copious supply of food, especially important in countries where the season is too short, or the summer's heat too little, for profitably cultivating the principal grain-plants.

111. =The Corm or Solid Bulb=, like that of Cyclamen (Fig. 103), and of Indian Turnip (Fig. 104), is a very short and thick fleshy subterranean stem, often broader than high. It sends off roots from its lower end, or rather face, leaves and stalks from its upper. The corm of Cyclamen goes on to enlarge and to produce a succession of flowers and leaves year after year. That of Indian Turnip is formed one year and is consumed the next. Fig. 104 represents it in early summer, having below the corm of last year, from which the roots have fallen. It is partly consumed by the growth of the stem for the season, and the corm of the year is forming at base of the stem above the line of roots.

112. The corm of Crocus (Fig. 105, 106), like that of its relative Gladiolus, is also reproduced annually, the new ones forming upon the summit and sides of the old. Such a corm is like a tuber in budding from the sides, i. e. from the axils of leaves; but these leaves, instead of being small scales, are the sheathing bases of foliage-leaves which covered the surface. It resembles a true bulb in having these sheaths or broad scales; but in the corm or solid bulb, this solid part or stem makes up the principal bulk.

113. =The Bulb=, strictly so-called, is a stem like a reduced corm as to its solid part (or plate); while the main body consists of thickened scales, which are leaves or leaf-bases. These are like bud-scales; so that in fact a bulb is a bud with fleshy scales on an exceedingly short stem. Compare a White Lily bulb (Fig. 107) with the strong scaly buds of the Hickory and Horse-chestnut (Fig. 72 and 73), and the resemblance will appear. In corms, as in tubers and rootstocks, the store of food for future growth is deposited in the stem; while in the bulb, the greater part is deposited in the bases of the leaves, changing them into thick scales, which closely overlap or enclose one another.

114. =A Scaly Bulb= (like that of the Lily, Fig. 107, 108) is one in which the scales are thick but comparatively narrow.

115. =A Tunicated or Coated Bulb= is one in which the scales enwrap each other, forming concentric coats or layers, as in Hyacinth and Onion.

116. =Bulblets= are very small bulbs growing out of larger ones; or small bulbs produced above ground on some plants, as in the axils of the leaves of the bulbiferous Lilies of the gardens (Fig. 110), and often in the flower-clusters of the Leek and Onion. They are plainly buds with thickened scales. They never grow into branches, but detach themselves when full grown, fall to the ground, and take root there to form new plants.

117. =Consolidated Vegetation.= An ordinary herb, shrub, or tree is evidently constructed on the plan developing an extensive surface. In fleshy rootstocks, tubers, corms, and bulbs, the more enduring portion of the plant is concentrated, and reduced for the time of struggle (as against drought, heat, or cold) to a small amount of exposed surface, and this mostly sheltered in the soil. There are many similar consolidated forms which are not subterranean. Thus plants like the Houseleek (Fig. 91) imitate a bulb. Among Cactuses the columnar species of Cereus (Fig. 111, b), may be likened to rootstocks. A green rind serves the purpose of foliage; but the surface is as nothing compared with an ordinary leafy plant of the same bulk. Compare, for instance, the largest Cactus known, the Giant Cereus of the Gila River (Fig. 111, in the background), which rises to the height of fifty or sixty feet, with a common leafy tree of the same height, such as that in Fig. 89, and estimate how vastly greater, even without the foliage, the surface of the latter is than that of the former. Compare, in the same view, an Opuntia or Prickly-Pear Cactus, its stem and branches formed of a succession of thick and flattened joints (Fig. 111, a), which may be likened to tubers, or an Epiphyllum (d), having short and flat joints, with an ordinary leafy shrub or herb of equal size. And finally, in Melon-Cactuses, Echinocactus (c), or other globose forms (which may be likened to permanent corms), with their globular or bulb-like shapes, we have plants in the compactest shape; their spherical figure being such as to expose the least possible amount of substance to the air. These are adaptations to climates which are very dry, either throughout or for a part of the year. Similarly, bulbous and corm-bearing plants, and the like, are examples of a form of vegetation which in the growing season may expand a large surface to the air and light, while during the period of rest the living vegetable is reduced to a globe, or solid form of the least possible surface; and this protected by its outer coats of dead and dry scales, as well as by its situation under ground. Such are also adapted to a season of drought. They largely belong to countries which have a long hot season of little or no rain, when, their stalks and foliage above and their roots beneath early perishing, the plants rest securely in their compact bulbs, filled with nourishment and retaining their moisture with great tenacity, until the rainy season comes round. Then they shoot forth leaves and flowers with wonderful rapidity, and what was perhaps a desert of arid sand becomes green with foliage and gay with blossoms, almost in a day.