What Is A Flower Bulb?
A flower bulb is basically a food storage locker for plants -- the bulb contains most everything the plant needs to sprout and flower.
If you look at a cross section of a flower bulb, you can see that the basal center of the bulb has leaves cradling a baby bud. The bud is surrounded by white, fleshy layers called the scales, which contain all the food the bulb will need to flower and thrive. At the bottom of the bulb is the basal plate, which anchors the scales and the floral stalk holding the bud. This plate also anchors the roots of the plant. Covering the whole thing is a thin outer skin called the tunic.
All the flower bulb needs is for you to put it in the ground in the appropriate season and give it some water now and then. The bulb does everything else!
Flower bulbs generally fall into two classifications: spring-flowering bulbs and summer bulbs. Spring bulbs are winter hardy, and require a frost and period of dormancy before they can bloom. Summer bulbs are not winter hardy, and fall into the category of tender bulbs, which cannot perennialize in areas experiencing frosts.
Is My Flower Bulb a Bulb, a Corm, or a Tuber?
You often hear about popular flower "bulbs" such as crocuses, dahlias, and gladioli. But did you know that technically they aren't true bulbs? Crocuses and gladioli are actually corms, and that old garden standby the dahlia is a tuber.
There isn't a huge difference between corms and true flower bulbs, and in fact they are easy to mix up because they look so similar. The main difference is in where the food is stored: in corms, it's mainly stored in an enlarged basal plate instead of in the scales (scales in corms are much smaller than scales in true bulbs). Because of this, corms tend to be flatter in shape, whereas bulbs are usually rounder.
Tubers are easy to tell apart from bulbs and corms. Tubers don't have a protective tunic, nor do they have scales or a basal plate. In fact they are really just enlarged stem tissue. They can vary in shape from tubular (appropriate for a tuber), to round, to flat, to clusters. Bulbs and corms do not come in clusters
Don't worry too much about using the term "bulb", though. You won't be mocked out of the garden center if you ask for crocus bulbs instead of crocus corms. In common usage, a flower bulb is any flower using an underground food storage method -- and this includes true bulbs, corms, and tubers.
More Information about Spring Flowering Bulbs
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