VARIETIES. 



17 



grow 8 to 10 feet high and 6 to 7 feet above the water and have a 

 very large panicle, often exceeding 2 feet from the lower joint to the 

 tip of the pistillate end. The pistillate portion of the panicle in the 

 Potomac plant is distinctly spreading and the branches often bear IT 

 to 21 seeds. The plant common to the northern Minnesota lakes is 

 smaller than that of the Potomac, usually reaching only 3 or -1 feet 

 above the water. The panicle is shorter, rarely if ever exceeding 20 

 inches in length, more often 10 inches or loss. The pistillate portion 

 rarely exceeds 10 inches in length and usually has its branches closely 

 appressed. When spreading of the branches of the pistillate portion 

 of the panicle does occur in the wild rice of the northern lakes it is 

 seldom that all the branches of a panicle are spreading — frequently 

 only 1 or 2 of them, rarely more than 4 or 5 — and the branches of the 

 panicle of the Minnesota plant rarely carry more than !» seeds, usually 

 from 3 to 7. 



The following table of seed measurements is o-iven to show the differ- 

 ence in size of wild rice seeds from different reo-ions. These measure- 

 ments were made on the seed after the hull was removed and are oiven 

 in metric millimeters. 



It will be observed from this table that the seeds from northern 

 varieties are larger, particularly much thicker, than those of the 

 Potomac variety. 



There is also in the northern-grown wild rice a marked distinction 

 in coloration. Some of the plants are a rich purple color in the 

 panicle and have a large amount of purple coloring in the leaf sheath 

 and along the margin of the leaf blade, while others remain with 

 almost no suggestion of any color but green, except perhaps a pinkish 

 tinge in the glumes of the staminate flowers. The stamens in all cases 

 are uniformly of a rich bright yellow, and the mature seeds are always 

 black. Some seeds are green or greenish brown in color, but this is 

 due to their immaturity. It is difficult to understand this difference 

 in color in wild-rice plants. It has been shown that the plants are 

 uniformly cross-pollinated, and plants of both colors grow side by 

 side in the northern lakes, though in some localities plants of one 

 color or the other predominate: and while one may find a few cases of 

 colors intergrading between these two. the extremes of coloration are 

 the rule, and, except in rare cases, marked coloration, when it occurs, 

 extend^ throughout the plant. For instance, a dark purple pistillate 



2487— No. 50—03 2 



