TUBERS—STARCH

“There are buds that, though called to an independent existence, do not, before separating from the mother plant, store up provisions nor thicken their scales; but the plant itself is charged with feeding them. When it is intended that the stem or branch shall itself maintain the buds it bears, then, instead of coming out into the open air where it would speedily cover itself with foliage and flowers, it remains underground and has for leaves only rudimentary scales. It grows so corpulent and deformed as to cease to bear the name of branch and to take instead that of tuber. As soon as necessary supplies have been stored up, the tuber detaches itself from the mother plant, and thenceforth the buds it bears find in it abundant nourishment for their separate existence. A tuber, then, is an underground branch swollen with nutritive material and having undeveloped scales in place of leaves, and it is also dotted here and there with buds which it must feed.