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A geophyte (earth+plant) is a plant with an underground storage organ including true bulbs, corms, tubers, tuberous roots, enlarged hypocotyls, and rhizomes. Most plants with underground stems are geophytes but not all plants that are geophytes have underground stems. Geophytes are often physiologically active even when they lack leaves.
The underground bulbs are egg-shaped (ovoid) and made of up of multiple layers protected by dried outer layers (tunicate) like an onion. [5] The plant's leaves appear very early in the spring and are narrow. [6] Most of the leaves spring directly from the ground (basal leaves), though a few much smaller ones may attach to the flowering stem. [7]
All parts of the plant have a strong garlic odour.The underground bulb is 1–2 cm diameter, with a fibrous outer layer. The main (flower) stem grows to 30–120 cm tall, bearing 2–4 leaves and an apical inflorescence 2–5 cm diameter comprising a number of small bulbils and none to a few flowers, subtended by a basal bract.
The bulb's leaf bases, also known as scales, generally do not support leaves, but contain food reserves to enable the plant to survive adverse conditions. At the center of the bulb is a vegetative growing point or an unexpanded flowering shoot. The base is formed by a reduced stem, and plant growth occurs from this basal plate.
A corm is a short, vertical, swollen underground plant stem consisting of one or more internodes with at least one growing point, with protective leaves modified into skins or tunics. The thin tunic leaves are dry papery, dead sheaths, formed from the leaves produced the year before.
Allium platycaule is a species of wild onion known as broadstemmed onion or flat-stem onion. It is native to northeastern California, south-central Oregon (Lake County) and northwestern Nevada (Washoe and Humboldt Counties). It is found on slopes of elevations of 1500–2500 m. [1]
Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow horizontally. The rhizome also retains the ability to allow new shoots to grow upwards. [4] A rhizome is the main stem of the plant that runs typically underground and horizontally to the soil surface. [5] [6] Rhizomes have nodes and internodes and auxiliary buds. [7]
Homeria species produce bunches of cormels on underground stem nodes, and Watsonia meriana for example actually produces cormels profusely from under bracts on the inflorescences. [4] Those growing from the bottom of the corm are normal fibrous roots formed as the shoots grow, and are produced from the basal area at the bottom of the corm.