These ensure food supplies, including those for the following year which means it is important not to disturb the plant whilst it is growing. If conditions are unfavourable bulbs will continue to develop underground, using energy reserves to create new scales or secondary bulbs. In this way some lilies will remain apparently dormant for a whole season. Although normal sexual reproduction occurs to produce seed, vegetative reproduction also occurs, producing plants identical to the parent. Bulbs and corms produce offsets, kind of mini bulbs, that can be detached and grown on.
Some lilies can even produce bulbils, miniature bulbs, in their leaf axils.
After flowering these drop off and will eventually grow into bulbs of flowering size. Stolons are produced by some kinds of tulip. These are runners up to 2 feet long or more thrown out from the base of the bulb and each produces new bulbs from the tip. Rhizomes advance by growing outwards, forming new shoots at the nodes. It would be fun to try out a small bed using only plants in the category formed by our theme.