bulb
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bulb
Bibliography
See J. E. Bryan, Bulbs (1989).
Bulb
a modified, usually subterranean shoot with a greatly shortened stem and fleshy scalelike leaves.
Bulbs store water and nutritive substances (primarily sugars); they are also a means of vegetative renewal and reproduction. In some plant species, bulblets develop in the inflorescences (onions and meadow grasses) or in the leaf axils of aboveground shoots (lilies and toothworts). Bulbs can function as storage organs for approximately one year (annual bulbs of tulips, onions, and fritillary) or longer (perennial bulbs of narcissus, snowdrop, and hyacinth). After their nutrients have been used, dry scales form protective outer coverings. Scaly bulbs have narrow scales that touch the bulb only at their bases (lilies); tunicated bulbs have broad enwrapping scales (onions).
According to the manner of growth, two types of bulbs are distinguished. Monopodial, or intermediate, bulbs renew themselves at the expense of the terminal bud of the bulb stem (snow-drop, narcissus, and belladonna lily). In plants with sympodial, or determinate, bulbs, the inflorescence and aboveground parts develop from the terminal bud, but the bulb regenerates at the expense of the bud located in the axil of a scale (tulips, onions, and hyacinths). In sympodial bulbs the mother bulb is replaced annually by daughter bulbs. If not one but two or more buds are active, the bulb reproduces vegetatively. In garlic plants several cloves form in the axils of the bulb scales and are arranged in a row, thus constituting complex bulbs.
N. I. SHORINA