Erythronium.
FRITILLARIAS (31. MOGGRIDGEI, 32. WALUJEWI, 33. MELEAGRIS ALBA, 34. RECURVA)]
[PROPAGATION OF BULBOUS PLANTS.]
Perhaps there is no one class of plants that have so many ways of being easily increased as bulbous plants proper. Some kinds, e.g., Liliums, Alliums, may be increased in four different ways—from offsets and "spawn," scales, bulbils, and, last of all, seeds.
[Offsets.]—The great mass of bulbous and cormous plants, however, are so readily multiplied by detaching the offsets from the parent bulb or corm, that the other methods are rarely employed except by trade growers. Nearly all hardy bulbous plants produce offsets freely. These offsets represent a superabundance of nourishment that has been elaborated in the leaves, and very often there are several smaller ones attached to the base of the larger ones that have been produced in precisely the same way.
In the case of Daffodils, Tulips, Hyacinths, Crocuses, Gladiolus, and a host of others, the new offsets are pressed against the sides or on top of the older ones. In the drawing of the Tulip ([p. 30]), three new bulbs are to be seen surrounding all that is left of the old bulb. This latter has practically vanished up the main axis from the disc to produce flowers and leaves—hence it follows that the Tulip bulb somewhat resembles the corm in its vegetative characters. The bulbs taken out of the soil in early summer are not those that were planted the previous autumn.
Besides "offsets," some plants produce numerous small vegetative bodies called "[cloves]" or "spawn." These are shown in the drawing of the Gladiolus ([p. 14]), where two strong flowering corms have been developed on top of the old shrivelled one. At the base of each of these are numerous small outgrowths among the contractile roots. If these growths or spawn are taken off and stored in sandy soil until spring, they may then be planted in special beds, and in the course of two or three years will reach the flowering size.
