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In botany, a 'rhizome' is a horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground and often sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Good examples of plants with underground rhizomes include medicinally important ginger and turmeric and the economically damaging weeds Johnson grass, bermuda grass and purple nutsedge. The spreading stems of ferns are also rhizomes. Some plants have rhizomes that grow above ground or that sit at the soil surface including some ''Iris'' species. Rhizomes may also be referred to as creeping rootstalks, or rootstocks. A stolon is similar to a rhizome, but instead of being the main stem of the plant, which is what a rhizome is, a stolon sprouts from an existing stem and has long internodes and generates new shoots at the end. A good example of a plant that grows with stolons is strawberry. Rhizomes typically have short internodes; they send out roots from the bottom of the nodes and new vertically growing shoots from the top of the nodes.
For many plants, the rhizome acts as the "seed", and is used by humans to propagate the plants, by a process known as vegetative reproduction. Examples of plants that are propagated this way include asparagus, ginger, irises, Lily of the Valley, Cannas and sympodial orchids.
A tuber is a thickened part of a stolon or root that has been enlarged for use as a storage organ. ^[1] They are typically high in starch. An example of a tuber is the common potato, a modified stolon. The term tuber is often used imprecisely and is sometimes applied to plants with rhizomes.

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References

See also

★ Underground stem

References

1. Kingsley R. Stern ''Introductory Plant Biology'', 10th ed.