:This article is about a botanical term. For electric bulb, see instead: light bulb. "Bulb" is one of very few words in the English language that does not rhyme with anything. See: List of English words without rhymes.
A bulb is an underground vertical shoot that has modified leaves (or thickened leaf bases) that are used as food storage organs by a dormant plant. Other types of storage organs (such as corms, rhizomes, and tubers) are sometimes erroneously referred to as bulbs.
A bulb's leaf bases generally do not support leaves, but contain food reserves to enable the plant to survive adverse conditions. The leaf bases may overlap and surround the center of the bulb as with lilies, or may completely surround the inner regions of the bulb, as with the onion. A modified stem forms the base of the bulb, and plant growth occurs from this base. Roots emerge from the underside of the base, and new stems and leaves from the upper side.
Cultivated plants that form true bulbs include:
- OnionFor the parody newspaper, see The Onion''. For the computer networking technique, see Onion Routing. Onion in the general sense can be used for any plant in the genus Allium but used without qualifiers usually means Allium cepa also called the garden onio, garlicGarlic Allium sativum is a bulbous perennial food plant of the family Alliaceae. The word comes to us from Old English grleac meaning "spear leek". Because of its wide cultivation, its origins are uncertain; it has been traced to both southwest Siberia an, and other alliumSee List of Allium species Allium is the onion genus with about 1250 species, mostly classified in its own family Alliaceae. Some botanists classify it in the Lily family ( Liliaceae). They are perennial bulbous plants. They occur in temperate climates ofs
- Lily, tuliplinifolia T. praestans T. saxatilis Tulips are plants of the genus Tulipa in the lily family, Liliaceae. They are bulbous plants, grown for the very showy large flowers. There are around a hundred species, originating from the region from Anatolia and Ira, and other members of the lily family
- Amaryllis, Hippeastrum, Narcissus, and other members of the amaryllis family
- Some species of Iris
Some epiphytic orchids form bulb-like, above-ground storage organ called a pseudobulb.
Botany
