Q49
General ScienceBiology
Ginger is a stem because
- a.it grows horizontally in the soil.
- b.it stores food materials.
- c.absence of chlorophyll.
- d.it has nodes and inter-nodes.
Answer: (D) it has nodes and inter-nodes.
Ginger is a rhizome, an underground stem, and the proof is that it bears nodes and internodes with scale leaves and buds, features that only stems have. The other options are true of ginger but are not what makes it a stem: roots such as sweet potato and carrot also grow in soil, store food and lack chlorophyll. Underground stem modifications to remember: rhizome (ginger, turmeric), tuber (potato, whose 'eyes' are nodes), corm (colocasia, gladiolus, saffron) and bulb (onion, garlic). Storage roots, by contrast, include sweet potato, carrot, radish, turnip and beet.