On a different tangent, what do we say about trees or herbs that can tolerate drought. For example I know that some cotton plants that can go months without water (even in pots) and then suddenly sprout new leaves with water. A species on an Island in the Gulf of Mexico was observed to go without water for more than a year and then promptly flower and seed with rain. James Frelichowski --- On Thu, 8/21/08, David Ehrlich <idavide@sbcglobal.net> wrote: From: David Ehrlich <idavide@sbcglobal.net> Subject: Re: [pbs] What is a succulent To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Date: Thursday, August 21, 2008, 11:42 AM I was taught, perhaps wrongly, that tubers are composed of stem-like, not root-like tissue. The example used in high school was not Dahlia or Begonia, where the stem is attached to the tuber, but white potato, where the tuber is clearly separate from the stem. Orchids, gosh, I'm not sure -- one could certainly make a case for considering (some of) them succulents or geophytes. ----- Original Message ---- From: "bonaventure@optonline.net" <bonaventure@optonline.net> To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 11:10:34 AM Subject: Re: [pbs] What is a succulent What about the "tubers" of Bletilla? Some genera of terrestrial orchids (eg. Cyrtopodium, Eulophia) have species with those underground structures, yet other species with them partially buried and others with them totally exposed where they are termed "pseudobulbs" yet they are completely made up of stem tissue?? Isn't "tuber" a swollen root structure, as in Dahlia and some species of Impatiens, as opposed to "corm" made up of stem tissue? Bonaventure _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/