380 
there are two castes of grains, the one being the “ anudrom” of 
the other, the leaf-folding starting diversely, and the leaves of suc- 
cessive nodes, running contrariwise in the plumule of one grain 
as compared with that of another grain. 
The next problem was to orientate the grains of each caste in 
the ear of Maize. The ear consists of columns each containing 4 
pair of rows of grains; we may designate the row opposite our 
right hand dextral and the other row (opposite our left) as sinis- 
tral. It was soon made out that in the particular ear examined, 
the grains of the dextral row were all with dextral embryos, and 
those of the sinistral row had sinistral embryos. Whether this 
law would apply to all the ears on one plant, or whether the order 
would be inverted between the ears arising from successive nodes, 
or between the ears of different plants, is yet to be determined. 
On examining the very young ear of maize I found the grains of 
the paired rows of each column orientated close to each other, 
almost face to face, the young styles running up together, and a 
gap between the adjoining two-rowed columns. 
From this discovery the inference was obvious that the seeds 
of corn differ from each other antidromically, according to the side 
of the placenta or axis from which they arise; that their embryos 
vary in consequenee, and determine the caste of the future plant. 
Whilst it was easy to see that the same rule will include all the 
Gramineae, I hazarded the suggestion that it may be found in 
some measure to dominate other orders of plants. The dis- 
covery as to the corn .disposes of Sachs’s crowning argument 
against phyllotaxy, which he supposed could have no significancy 
as to Gramineae, on account of their distichous leaves. 
Early in August, 1895, 1 was struck by the graceful inflores- 
cence of Ladies’ Tresses (Spiranthes praecox Watson, S. £ ramined 
var. Walteri Gray). Its spiral rows of pure white flowers are anti- 
dromic as between different individual plants; about half the 
specimens have dextral spirals (viz., turning in the direction of the 
thread of a common screw), and the same number have sinistral 
spirals. Another interesting point was that the phyllotaxy, or 
arrangement of the distichous leaves in a primitive spiral, of each 
of the plants of Sprranthes follows the order of the inflorescence, 
dextrorse phyllotaxy invariably accompanying the dextrorse an- 
