Diane, your trip through the vegetable aisle brought you close to what I had in mind when I started this iteration of this thread on the definition of geophyte. The assertion I posed was "not all bulbs are geophytes". The bulb I had in mind was Florence fennel, Foeniculum vulgare v. azoricum. I say it's not a geophyte because the bulb is above ground (or mostly so). Are bulbous epiphytes geophytes? Maybe we should call them "dendrogeophytes". This is a hoot! Jim McKenney jimmckenney@starpower.net Montgomery County, Maryland, zone 7, where any bulb not tucked down into the ground will be a goner in this weather. At 08:46 AM 1/25/2004 -0800, you wrote: >Angelo's letter was thought-provoking. My thoughts now dwell on some >much commoner plants than he mentioned. Scarlet runner beans produce >a big underground tuber. A little tour through the vegetable market >reveals lots of tubers: potatoes, sweet potatoes, jicama, various >Chinese roots - one is a Stachys I think. > > Diane Whitehead >_______________________________________________ >pbs mailing list >pbs@lists.ibiblio.org >http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php >