Adventitious Buds

Each spring, buds burst forth with new leaves, flowers, and stems. But sometimes those buds appear in unusual places.


Normal stems produce one or more buds at nodes. Nodes are those small bumps you see along stems. The plant cells at nodes are different from plant cells elsewhere along the stem. Those cells are what make buds and leaves possible.


We expect to see terminal buds at the end of stems and axillary or lateral buds along the sides of a stem. This is where a leaf is already connected, on a shoot node at the leaf axil. These are normal ways of growing buds for vascular plants. But adventitious buds are rogues and outliers. This can be to their advantage. It can also be risky.

Mother of thousands plant with adventitious buds (CrazyD)

Adventitious buds turn up in strange places. You may find them along internodes, on leaves, in the callus of fresh pruning cuts, on new shoots, and even on roots. These buds are called adventitious because they take advantage of unusual opportunities.


In response to injury

When a plant is injured, whether through pruning, herbivore or insect feeding, fire, or mechanical injury, a whole slew of responses kick in to seal off the affected area. And sometimes the plant responds by trying to replace the damaged stems using adventitious buds. These buds may appear out from under the bark, at a pruning cut. They may pop up on the stump of a severed cactus.

Ginger produces new shoots from adventitious buds on rhizomes (Kate Russell)

As vegetative reproduction

Towering redwood trunks, when exposed to sunlight, produce adventitious buds that can take over, in case the higher up portions of the tree don’t survive. Gingers’ delicious, peppery rhizomes produce adventitious buds. So do strawberry stolons, or runners.


​When you propagate plants using cuttings and layering, you are using a plant’s ability to generate adventitious buds and roots. If you (or a neighbor) have one of those trees that keep putting out suckers, you are dealing with adventitious buds that occur on roots. Some leaves produce adventitious buds that develop roots. These piggyback plantlets then drop to the ground and start growing on their own. All of these buds are forms of vegetative reproduction.

Redwood trunks exposed to sunlight produce adventitious buds (Kate Russell)

As for the risks mentioned earlier, when a stem produces a lot of secondary growth, adventitious buds are often killed off. I have no idea who makes that decision or how it is carried out. I guess plants figure those outliers are expendable, as is often the case.


Which plants in your garden have adventitious buds?