APOGAMY IN THE MAIZE PLANT, 
By G. N. Couns. ¢ 
The behavior of some of the varieties of Indian corn, from Mexico 
and Central America, with which the Department of Agriculture is 
experimenting, exemplifies the tendency of plants to develop ab- 
normally when placed under new and unusual conditions. Among the 
large number of abnormalities which have come under observation a 
case of apogamy appears worthy of special mention, since this phenom- 
enon seems not to have been reported in Zea mays. 
The abnormality here described was first observed by Mr. R. M. 
Meade at Victoria, Texas, in a variety from Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, 
Mexico. Briefly described, it consists in the production of branches 
or young plants in the place of the spikelets of the male inflorescence 
or tassel. Of this variety, which was grown only at Victoria, practi- 
cally all the plants exhibited this character in a greater or less degree. 
In other varieties, both at Victoria and elsewhere, a few individual 
plants were subsequently found that showed a tendency in this direc- 
tion. The production of these apogamous plants is doubtless a mani- 
festation of the excessive vegetative growth shown by most of the 
tropical varieties of corn when grown for the first time in the United 
States. While not as prevalent as the branched ear, staminate flowers 
in the ear, and other common eccentricities, these apogamous inflor- 
escences are still of sufficiently frequent occurrence to indicate a definite 
tendency which if properly interpreted might throw light on the 
development of the corn plant. 
Plants with this peculiarity have the tassel unusually large. The 
lower spikelets are replaced by small plants or branches, many of 
which have leaves 20 em. long. The first leaf of these young plants or 
branches is undoubtedly a transformed outer glume. Though consider- 
ably enlarged, in some cases 20 min. long, it is still easily recognizable 
asa glume. The next organs are similar to the early leaves of normal 
corn plants. Following 7 or 8 of these leaves a terminal female inflor- 
escence can be made out, in most cases distinctly 8-rowed, but in some 
cases with 4-rowed branches after the manner of the monstrous ears 
occasionally produced at the ends of basal branches or suckers. 
In passing upward from the base of the tassel the leaves of these 
abnormal branches gradually decrease in size, and about midway on the 
tassel there is only a rather unusual development of the lemma (flower- 
a Bureau of Plant Industry, U. 8. Department of Agriculture. 
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