culms's Usage Examples:

A, B, C, D, successive series of axes, the last bearing aerial culms.

r) is also a striking example of " definite " growth; it is much branched, the short, thick, curved branches being given off below the apex of the older ones and at right angles to them, the whole forming a series of connected arched axes, truncate at their ends, which were formerly continued into leafy culms.

In internal structure grass-culms, save in being hollow, conform to that usual in monocotyledons; the vascular bundles run parallel in the internodes, but a horizontal interlacement occurs at the nodes.

After ripening of the seed, the leafless flowering culms always die down.

Its culms and leaves afford excellent fodder for cattle; and the grain, of which the yield in favourable situations is upwards of a hundredfold, is used for the same purposes as maize, rice, corn and other cereals.

The aerial leaf-bearing branches (culms) are a characteristic feature of grasses.

Less absolute characters, but generally trustworthy and more easily observed, are the feathery stigmas, the always distichous arrangement of the glumes, the usual absence of more general bracts in the inflorescence, the split leaf-sheaths, and the hollow, cylindrical, jointed culms - some .

The exterior of the culms is more or less concealed by the leaf-sheaths; it is usually smooth and often highly polished, the epidermal cells containing an amount of silica sufficient to leave after burning a distinct skeleton of their structure.

In some bamboos they are very numerous from the lower nodes of the erect culms, and pass downwards to the soil, whilst those from the upper nodes shrivel up and form circles of spiny fibres.

The culms are purple-black, very slender and round.

The function of the nodes is to raise again culms which have become bent down; they are composed of highly turgescent tissue, the cells of which elongate on the side next the earth when the culm is placed in a horizontal or oblique position, and thus raise the culm again to an erect position.

Synonyms:

stem, stalk,

Antonyms:

rear, ride,