BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
Campripar, Massacuusetts, DeckMBER 26, 1956 
VoL. 17, No. 8 
EVOLUTION LEADING TO THE 
FORMATION OF THE CUPULATE FRUIT 
CASE IN THE AMERICAN MAYDEAE 
BY 
Watton C. GaLinatT’ 
In the grasses certain characteristic floral structures re- 
main associated with the caryopses following dispersal 
and, as aresult, provide protection and facilitate dissemi- 
nation. Ina few genera the protective role of the spike- 
let bracts (glumes, lemmas, and paleas) is supplemented 
or replaced by other structural devices. For example, 
there may be an involucre of bristles below a spikelet 
(Setaria and Pennisetum); a bur of united bristles about 
each spikelet (Cenchrus); an indurated spathe subtend- 
ing and enclosing each pistillate spikelet (Coiz); a rosette 
of spathes subtending and enclosing the entire pistillate 
inflorescence or ear (Zea); or, as will be discussed here, 
a cupulate rachis-segment enveloping each _pistillate 
spikelet (Huchlaena and Tripsacum). 
Discussion of the ‘‘cupulate fruit case,’’ as well as its 
relationship to the ‘‘cupule’’ of maize (Zea Mays), in- 
volves use of a special nomenclature which has been de- 
veloped in the numerous papers on the American May- 
deae. Sturtevant (1899, p. 11), who first used the term 
‘‘cupule,’” has defined it as a ‘‘corneous alveolus of the 
cob’’ immediately above the attachment point of each 
"Research Fellow at the Bussey Institution of Harvard University. 
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