Corms+and+Bulbs

This page contains information about bulbs, and corms and how they can be used in the asexual propagation of plants. [|Information about Asexual Reproduction]

=Natural Vegetative Propagation --Scaly Bulbs= For plants such as onions, garlic, tulip, daffodil, and hyacinth, the bulb is the unit of vegetative propagation. The stem is shortened down to a disc, often called the **basal plate** from which roots arise around the edge. The leaf bases are attached to the upper surface of the stem. The **axillary buds** always found at the node (where the leaves attach) can develop into new bulbs in subsequent years. Thus, if you plant one daffodil bulb, a few years later you will have several bulbs in that place competing with each other for nutrients, water, and sun exposure. The flowering may be reduced as years go by unless the gardener digs up the competing bulbs and separates them in late summer. Sometimes you will discover that one onion is really "two" bulbs when you look inside.

=Natural Vegetative Propagation --Corms= Gladiolus and crocus "bulbs" are really not anything like an onion inside. These species have **corms**. The corm is essentially a basal plate without the leaf bases. The roots still originate around the edge of the disc-like corm and on the convex (lower) surface. The apical and axillary buds of the shoot system originate on the almost concave (upper) surface. Each of these will make a new corm for the next year. Again, this proliferation of corms on the upper surface of the original corm, results in a clump of corms competing with each other. So, if your crocus corms stop flowering after a few years, you simply need to dig them up in late summer and spread them out for next year.