Plant shoot

Usage examples of stolon.

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.

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.

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.

The same stolon was observed on the following day, and now it moved in a somewhat less complex manner, in a plane not far from vertical.

During neither of these days did the stolon bend downwards through geotropism or its own weight.

As this stolon was so long we thought that its growth was nearly completed, so we tried another which was thicker and shorter, viz.

This stolon was rendered permanently sinuous to a slight degree, and was thicker where sinuous than elsewhere, apparently from its longitudinal growth having been checked.

The stolon, however, did not circumnutate when it first began to bend down, as may be observed in the present diagram, and as was still more evident in the last case, when a longer portion of the stolon was left unsupported.

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.

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.

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

They whipped up and over the gunwales, and Lynan saw large boles attached to each of them, with white stolons growing from them that seemed to wave like tendrils.