Lilies: How baby lilies relocate, 1 by greenjay

greenjay wrote:
OK, this is when I wish I had a microscope. After reading this thread about contractile roots, I went to the propagator where I currently have about a dozen bulbils removed from a no-name asiatic lily in my garden. I lifted out the largest one with a probe, and what do you know, 1 white "normal' root and three "contractile" roots were growing out from the base of the bulbil. The contractile roots looked very much like the flat intestinal worms commonly found in the upper gut of small mammals (sorry folks, gross but true), with rings of contractile tissue in a flat -- not round-- root.

Too. Cool!