BOTANY

Detailed explanation-1: -Corms store starches to fuel growth and to help plants survive unfavourable conditions, and many produce offshoots known as daughter corms or cormels that are used for vegetative reproduction. Typical corms are those of the crocus, gladiolus, and taro.

Detailed explanation-2: -Corms can be dug up and used to propagate or redistribute the plant (see, for example, taro). Plants with corms generally can be propagated by cutting the corms into sections and replanting. Suitably treated, each section with at least one bud usually can generate a new corm.

Detailed explanation-3: -Gladiolus is propagated by corms (the underground storage organs-which are sometimes wrongly called as bulbs) and cormels. The cormels of the first year would be normally of very small size and would not yield any flowers.

Detailed explanation-4: -Dig up each corm and remove the small cormlets from the bottom. Store them over the winter and plant them in the spring. The cormlets will grow into a plant, but won’t produce a flower this first year. Dig them up for storage at the end of the season, then replant them again the next year to produce flowers.

Detailed explanation-5: -The gladiolus “bulb” is actually a food-storage structure known as a corm. Botanically, corms are flat, thickened underground stems.