David Briccetti, age 11, of Indianapolis, Indiana, for his question:
How do bulb plants reproduce?
Marigolds shed hundreds of seeds and a few lucky ones sprout roots and shoots. Poppies scatter capsules of fine seeds but only a few land in suitable soil. In plants of this sort, most of the seeds are lost or wasted. But plants that grow from bulbs are more economical. Tulips and juicy onions produce fewer offspring and often take longer to mature. But their smaller families have a better chance of surviving.
A tiny poppy seed contains a blueprint of the future plant. But it needs a great deal of outside help to complete its growth. It needs air and light, moisture and lots of chemical nutrients from the soil. If these items are not available, seeds of this sort come to nothing. However, bulbs are prepared to grow new plants without much outside help. Actually, a bulb is a sort of super seed, packed in its own store of concentrated food. An onion will start sprouting if you leave it on a bare shelf. If you perch a hyacinth bulb with its base touching water in a vase, it will grow roots, leaves and a waxy, fragrant blossom.
It takes time, often several seasons, to produce super seeds of this sort. Most of the time is spent on manufacturing and storing the concentrated foods stored in the bulb's fat juicy leaves or scales. Under the right soil conditions, a mature bulb starts the process of reproduction after the flowering season. The leaves use sunlight to manufacture sugar and the roots absorb nutrients from the soil. The bulb uses some of this food to replenish itself and it also may sprout two or more small lateral buds.
These are fleshy little bulblets that sprout roots and start storing food of their own. An onion bulblet may store up enough food to grow a mature plant during its first season. The bulblets of certain lilies may not produce mature flowering plants for several seasons. Some bulbs do not depend entirely on lateral buds. The garlic bulb, for example, may produce two or more of these bulblets. But meantime, its blue globular flower may produce a cluster of b ulblets. They bend down and take root.
In certain lily bulbs, separated scales may form new bulbs. Some lilies grow bulblets on their stems. If these are pampered through several seasons, they become mature bulbs ready to flower. Certain water lilies produce bulblets that float away sink to the bottom and gather enough food stores to sprout new flowering plants. And many bulbs produce seed bearing flowers.. Like other seeds they contain, the blueprint for future plants. But unlike other plants, they refuse to bloom until their super seeds are wrapped in fat sheaths of concentrated food.
Growing new bulbs from seeds requires skill and patience. But more and more young people are developing green thumbs for such projects. And the seed experts are helping things along.. The catalogs now offer seeds for growing all sorts of gorgeous lilies and a variety of other bulbs. If we follow instructions, we can expect mature, flowering plants after three seasons and in some cases during the second season.