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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.
Corm, bulbo-tuber, or bulbotuber is a short, vertical, swollen underground plant stem that serves as a storage organ that some plants use to survive winter or other adverse conditions such as summer drought and heat (perennation).
In the summer, with hot and dry conditions the plant becomes dormant, with all the above ground parts dying back. Colder temperatures in winter then activate the corms. [9] Propagation occurs sexually by seed and asexually by small corms, called cormels or cormlets, produced in the axils of the corms (between tunic scales and body of corm). [10]
Corms are solid enlarged underground stems that store nutrients in their fleshy and solid stem tissue and are surrounded by papery leaves. Corms differ from bulbs in that their centers consists of solid tissue while bulbs consist of layered leaves. [24] Examples of plants that use corms are gladiolus and taro.
In botany, perennation is the ability of organisms, particularly plants, to survive from one germinating season to another, especially under unfavourable conditions such as drought or winter cold. It typically involves development of a perennating organ , which stores enough nutrients to sustain the organism during the unfavourable season, and ...
The plant blooms annually around the beginning of the rainy season. The flower bud emerges from the corm as a purple shoot, and later blooms as a purple inflorescence. The pistillate (female) and staminate (male) flowers are on the same plant and are crowded in cylindrical masses as an inflorescence. The top part is responsible for secreting ...
The term pseudobulb is used to distinguish the above-ground storage organ from other storage organs derived from stems that were underground, namely corms or true bulbs, a combination of an underground stem and storage leaves. Strictly speaking, there is no clear distinction between the pseudobulb and corm structures.
Longitudinal section through bulb Cross section of onion bulb. 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.