- a prostrate stem, at or just below the surface of the ground, that produces new plants from buds at its tips or nodes.
- a rootlike extension of the body wall in a compound organism, as a bryozoan, usually giving rise to new members by budding.
- a long horizontal stem, as of the currants, that grows along the surface of the soil and propagates by producing roots and shoots at the nodes or tip
- a branching structure in lower animals, esp the anchoring rootlike part of colonial organisms, such as hydroids, on which the polyps are borne
