

Maize: A Botanical and Economic Study. 



By John W. Harshrerger, Ph.D. (Univ. of Penna.), 



Instructor in Botany, University of Pennsylvania. 



iWITH PLATES XIV, XV, XVI AND XVII. | 



CHAPTER I. 



Botanical. 



rOUR hundred years have passed since Columbus made 

 his celebrated voyages, and carried back to Europe 

 many strange plants and animals from the new world. 

 Maize seems to have been one of the plants which the Great 

 Navigator showed to Queen Isabella on his return to Spain. 

 Many prominent botanists, however, assert that maize is indi- 

 genous to the Asiatic Continent and the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago. 



De Candolle, in his "Origin of Cultivated Plants," says: 

 "The certainty as to the origin of maize will come rather 

 from archaeological discoveries. If a great number of monu- 

 ments in all parts of America are studied, if the hieroglyph- 

 ical inscriptions of some of these are deciphered, and if 

 dates of migrations and economical events are discovered, 

 our hypothesis [Nicaraguan origin] will be justified, modified 

 or rejected." The following is a contribution to that end. 



A. Gross Anatomy. 



Culms several from the same fibrous root, ascending, 

 branched ; internodes alternately furrowed. Plant five to 

 eight feet high. 



Foliage ample ; leaves broad, long, tapering to an acumi- 

 nate point, horizontal, tip pendulous ; ligule short, hyaline, 

 ciliate. 

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