layering

layering, horticultural practice of propagating a plant by rooting a branch before severing it from the mother plant. Typically the branch is bent and a section that has been slit or broken on the underside is covered with soil and held in place by means of stakes or pins. Trench layering induces new shoots from a length of buried branch. In mound, or stool, layering, the many shoots of a closely cropped young plant are heaped with soil. Air (or pot, or Chinese) layering is used when the branch cannot be bent to the ground; peat moss or some other suitable rooting medium is attached to a cut place on the branch. Layering is used mostly for multiplying plants not easily propagated from cuttings. Some plants propagate naturally by layering, e.g., raspberries, strawberries, and chrysanthemums.

Bibliography

See bulletins of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; H. T. Hartmann, Plant Propagation (1968).

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layering

 or layerage

Method of propagation in which plants are induced to regenerate missing parts from parts that are still attached to the parent plant. It occurs naturally for drooping black raspberry or forsythia stems, whose trailing tips root where they come in contact with the soil. They then send up new shoots from the newly rooted portion of the plant. For soil layering, lower stems are bent to the ground and covered with moist soil of good quality. For air layering, a branch is deeply slit and the wound is covered with a ball of earth or moss and kept moist until roots develop; the branch is then severed and transplanted. Layering was practiced by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. See also cutting.

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layering [′lā·ə·riŋ]

(botany)

A propagation method by which root formation is induced on a branch or a shoot attached to the parent stem by covering the part with soil.

(ecology)

A stratum of plant forms in a community, such as mosses, shrubs, or trees in a bog area.