Rhizome

In botany, a rhizome is a usually-underground, horizontal stem of a plant that often sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. They are also referred to as creeping rootstalks, or rootstocks. A stolon is similar to a rhizome, but exists above ground, sprouting from an existing stem.

Rhizome metaphors

Carl Jung used the term "rhizome", also calling it a "myzel", to emphasize the invisible and underground nature of life:

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:Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above the ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost the sense of something that lives and endures beneath the eternal flux. What we see is blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains. (Prologue from "Memories, Dreams, Reflections")

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Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari used the term "rhizome" to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation.

Related Topics:
Gilles Deleuze - Félix Guattari

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Jeff Vail has used it to describe a non-hierarchical structure for society.

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