_Herbaceous_, dying down to the ground every year, or after blossoming.

_Suffrutescent_, slightly woody below, there surviving from year to
year.

_Suffruticose_ or _Frutescent_, when low stems are decidedly woody
below, but herbaceous above.

_Fruticose_ or _Shrubby_, woody, living from year to year, and of
considerable size,--not, however, more than three or four times the
height of a man.

_Arborescent_, when tree-like in appearance or mode of growth, or
approaching a tree in size.

_Arboreous_, when forming a proper tree-trunk.

90. As to direction taken in growing, stems may, instead of growing
upright or erect, be

_Diffuse_, that is, loosely spreading in all directions.

_Declined_, when turned or bending over to one side.

_Decumbent_, reclining on the ground, as if too weak to stand.

_Assurgent_ or _Ascending_, rising obliquely upwards.

_Procumbent_ or _Prostrate_, lying flat on the ground from the first.

_Creeping_ or _Repent_, prostrate on or just beneath the ground, and
striking root, as does the White Clover, the Partridge-berry, etc.

_Climbing_ or _Scandent_, ascending by clinging to other objects for
support, whether by _tendrils_, as do the Pea, Grape-Vine, and
Passion-flower and Virginia Creeper (Fig. 92, 93); by their twisting
leaf-stalks, as the Virgin's Bower; or by rootlets, like the Ivy, Poison
Ivy, and Trumpet Creeper.

_Twining_ or _Voluble_, when coiling spirally around other stems or
supports; like the Morning-Glory (Fig. 90) and the Hop.

[Illustration: Fig. 90. Twining or voluble stem of Morning-Glory.]

91. Certain kinds of stems or branches, appropriated to special uses,
have received distinct substantive names; such as the following:

92. =A Culm=, or straw-stem, such as that of Grasses and Sedges.

93. =A Caudex= is the old name for such a peculiar trunk as a Palm-stem;
it is also used for an upright and thick rootstock.

94. =A Sucker= is a branch rising from stems under ground. Such are
produced abundantly by the Rose, Raspberry, and other plants said to
multiply "by the root." If we uncover them, we see at once the great
difference between these subterranean branches and real roots. They are
only creeping branches under ground. Remarking how the upright shoots
from these branches become separate plants, simply by the dying off of
the connecting under-ground stems, the gardener expedites the result by
cutting them through with his spade. That is, he propagates