Tubers

Tubers are enlarged structures in some plant species used as storage organs for nutrients. They are used for the plant's perennation (survival of the winter or dry months), to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season, and as a means of asexual reproduction.Stem tubers form from thickened rhizomes (underground stems) or stolons (horizontal connections between organisms). Common plant species with stem tubers include potato and yam. Some sources also treat modified lateral roots (root tubers) under the definition; these are encountered in sweet potato, cassava, and dahlia.

The term originates from latin tuber, meaning "lump, bump, swelling".

Some sources define the term "tuber" to mean only structures derived from stems; others use the term for structures derived from stems or roots.

A stem tuber forms from thickened rhizomes or stolons. The top sides of the tuber produce shoots that grow into typical stems and leaves and the under sides produce roots. They tend to form at the sides of the parent plant and are most often located near the soil surface. The underground stem tuber is normally a short-lived storage and regenerative organ developing from a shoot that branches off a mature plant. The offsprings or new tubers are attached to a parent tuber or form at the end of a hypogeogenous (initiated below ground) rhizome. In the autumn the plant dies, except for the new offspring stem tubers which have one dominant bud, which in spring regrows a new shoot producing stems and leaves, in summer the tubers decay and new tubers begin to grow. Some plants also form smaller tubers and/or tubercules which act like seeds, producing small plants that resemble (in morphology and size) seedlings. Some stem tubers are long-lived, such as those of tuberous begonia, but many plants have tubers that survive only until the plants have fully leafed out, at which point the tuber is reduced to a shriveled-up husk.

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