j6 Hai'shberger. — Maize : 



Flowers monoecious, proterandrous, sometimes synacmic : 

 Male inflorescence, a panicle of spikelets, terminal on central 

 stalk, and its side branches, 1 branches pendulous ; male 

 spikelets two to four to each joint, one or more short-pedi- 

 celled, two-flowered, flowers sessile ; glumes sub-equal, herba- 

 ceous, ciliate, sub-acuminate, concave, three- to five-nerved, 

 bicarinate ; flowering glumes two, hyaline ; palets two, hya- 

 line, concave ; lodicula two, cuneate, truncated obliquely. 

 Female inflorescence axillary, spicate, branched at times, with 

 a number of perfect ears on each branch. The spikes are 

 fasciated into a continuous spongy cob, so that the ripened 

 ear breaks readily at any point into its several joints, each 

 bearing two opposite pairs of kernels ; ears two to six 

 inches long, three-quarters of an inch broad, with two, 

 four, eight to ten rows of kernels; spikelets many, imbricated 

 on a cylindrical rhachis, spikelets paired in alveoli, strongly 

 margined and cupulate, the margin becoming hard and 

 corneous ; female spikelets two-flowered, with outer ones 

 neutral ; glumes membranaceous ; palets membranaceous, 

 concave, glabrous ; squamulcs and stamens none ; ovary 

 slightly stalked ; gram white, hard, corneous, smooth, 

 ovate, pointed, constricted at the base, three- eighths of an 

 inch long ; style terminal, compressed, pubescent with com- 

 pound hairs, filiform, point bifid. The grain belongs to the 

 race of soft corns {Zea amylacea, Sturtevant;. 2 



The relation of Zea to nearly allied genera, in the tribe 

 Mayde/E, becomes intelligible on examination of the Mexican 

 plant collected by Professor Duges. The plant may represent 

 the original wild form, or may be the reverted form of an 

 agricultural variety, but the latter supposition seems a highly 

 improbable one. The grains in the Mexican plant are placed 

 in alveoli, the margins of which are hard and corneous. All 

 the genera in the tribe Mayde^e have the grains enclosed in a 

 hard, stony case (Pariana, Coix, Polytoca, Chionache, Schler- 

 achne, Tripsacum, Euchlcend). Tripsacum and Zea show 



1 The illustrations in Plates xiv and xv show the side branch in a compacted form 

 the terminal tassel has not developed in the plant represented. 



2 Sturtevant, New York Agric. Exp. Stat. Rep., 18S4, 124 ; 18S6, 64. 



