Also 9 † stollen. [ad. L. stolōn-em, stolo, sucker of a plant. Cf. F. stolon.]
1. Bot. (See quot. 1880.)
1601. Holland, Pliny, XVII. i. I. 499. They of the noble Licinian familie had for their addition Stolons (that is to say, the unprofitable watershoots that put forth from the root or tree it selfe, and never prove or come to any good).
1802. R. Hall, Elem. Bot., Dict., Stolon, stolo, a shoot or scion, from the root of a plant, by which it may be propagated.
1840. J. Buel, Farmer’s Companion, 161. The habits of many plants, in sending abroad roots and stollens, to establish a progeny in fresh, unexhausted soil.
1861. Bentley, Man. Bot., 112. The sucker can scarcely be said to differ in any essential particulars from the stolon.
1863. Berkeley, Brit. Mosses, iii. 13. The tips of these creeping stolons rise above the surface.
1880. A. Gray, Struct. Bot., iii. 53. A Stolon is a prostrate or reclined branch which strikes root at the tip, and then develops an ascending growth, which becomes an independent plant.
1882. F. Darwin, in Nature, 20 April, 580. The stolons of the strawberry.
2. Zool. Each of the connecting processes of the cœnosarc of a compound organism.
1846. Dana, Zooph., iv. (1848), 58. These shoots are called stolons or creepers by Ehrenberg.
1856. W. Clark, Van der Hoeven’s Zool., I. 78. The common body is made up of stolons, connecting tubes erect, ventricose, striated, each containing a Polyp.
1875. Huxley, in Encycl. Brit., I. 130/2. The Zoanthidæ differ from the Actinidæ in little more than their multiplication by buds, which remain adherent, either by a common connecting mass or cœnosarc or by stolons.
1880. F. P. Pascoe, Zool. Classif. (ed. 2), 294. Stolons. In zoology connecting processes of the cœnosarc, &c.
3. Comb. stolon-like adj.
1849–52. T. R. Jones in Todd’s Cycl. Anat., IV. 1217/2. This stolon-like body is closed at the free extremity.
1882. Garden, 28 Jan., 66/3. The corms produce long stolon-like shoots.
