62 



PLANT BREEDING. 



strains and varieties of timothy, because a variety of barbed timothy" 

 could easily be broken up into strains or subvarieties, some of which 

 would have greater value than others. Breeders are prone to breed 

 for the distinguishing marks and to exert their energies in making 

 the new botanical characteristics come true to type, rather than to 

 seek first the jdeld per acre and quality of the grass and hay. The 



Fig. 20.— Floral organs of timothy. 1, two types of spikes, the righthand one in bloom, the left- 

 hand one a new variety, showing extended spikes. 2, a single flower: h, g, empty glumes; a, b, 

 flowering glumes; c,d,e, anthers; /.stigma. 3, longitudinal diagram of flowers showing posi- 

 tion of organs within the unopened glumes at k. /<, transverse diagram of flower. 5, outer or 

 empty glumes. 6, flowering glume. 7, palet. S, lodicule. .9, transverse diagram of anther 

 10, pollen grains. 11, 12, 13, pistil before, at the time of, and after pollination. lU, outer, longi- 

 tudinal, and transverse appearance of seed. 



difficulty of planting these minute seeds in hills in the field and the 

 gain of a year in the maturity of the plants has led to the plan of 

 planting the seeds in greenhouse pots in winter and transplanting to 

 the field in the spring. Since timothy is an open-pollinated species, 

 it would seem unwise to base efforts for its improvement upon a single 

 mother plant. Effort should be directed to finding superior indi- 

 viduals and mixing together their seeds for breeding purposes. To 



