Botanist's runners

Usage examples of stolons.

It was shown in the last chapter that the stolons or runners of certain plants circumnutate largely, and that this movement apparently aids them in finding a passage between the crowded stems of adjoining plants.

The sticks and haulms were removed after the passage of the four stolons, two of which were found to have assumed a permanently sinuous shape, and two were still straight.

We see from these three cases that stolons or runners circumnutate in a very complex manner.

That the stolons are thus aided in passing over obstacles and in winding between the stems of the surrounding plants, the observations above given render almost certain.

Close in front of the tips of the prostrate stolons, a crowd of very thin sticks and the dried haulms of grasses were driven into the sand, to represent the crowded stems of surrounding plants in a state of nature.

So it is with the stems, stolons, flowerpeduncles, and leaves of older plants.

Four stolons still attached to the plant were laid on damp sand in the back of a room, with their tips facing the northeast windows.

This was done for the sake of observing how the growing stolons would pass through them.

Several stolons were laid on a flat surface of damp sand, in the same manner as with those of the strawberry.