1*)8 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



sheaths : scapes very slender, ^ to 3 inches high ; heads globose to 

 oblong-ovate, ^ to H lines high ; involucral bracts scarious, white or 

 nearly so, oblong to obovate, obtuse, the inner white becoming some- 

 what fuliginous, acutish : flowers trimerous, mostly pistillate, a few at 

 the apex staminate ; petals linear-spatulate, slightly ciliate above : 

 seeds very minutely papillose. — Wet places near Guanajuato ; No- 

 vember, 1889 (n. 2936). 



3. Upon a wild Species of Zea from 3Iexico. 



Prof. "W. H. Brewer, in a communication to Dr. Sturtevant, to be 

 found in the paper of the latter upon '' Indian Corn " in the Report of 

 the New York State Agricultural Society for 1878, gives a statement 

 which Roezl, the well known German collector, made to him in 1869 

 to this effect: that "he found in the State of Guerero a Zea which 

 he thinks specificially distinct, and he thinks undescribed ; the ears 

 very small, in two rows truly distichous ; the ear (but not each grain 

 separately) covered with a husk, the grain precisely like some varieties 

 of maize, only smaller and harder." Specimens of a Zea which is 

 in all probability the same that Roezl referred to were received by me 

 in 1888 from Prof. A. Dug^s of Guanajuato under the designation of 

 Mais de Coyote. It was reported to him as growing wild at Moro 

 Leon, to the south of the State of Guanajuato, and as not at all re- 

 sembling ordinary varieties of maize. The specimens sent were two 

 very slender stalks about four feet high, with a small terminal stami- 

 nate inflorescence but no trace of fertile spikes. These were probably 

 very depauperate stalks, that had been selected for easy carriage. 

 Accompanying them was a united cluster of about half a dozen small 

 ears enveloped in their husks, each about two inches long and bearing 

 a few rows of small white pointed kernels. 



Some of the peculiarities of this remarkable corn were noted at 

 the time, but nothing more was done until last year, when an attempt 

 was made to grow it at the Botanic Garden, Cambridge, with quite 

 unexpected results. The corn was planted early under glass, and as 

 soon as danger from frosts was over the plants were transferred to a 

 warm sunny location, where they .soon began to grow vigorously and 

 to send out numerous ofTshoots from the base. These "suckers" grew 

 as rapidl}' as the main stalk, so that the plants, wiiich had fortunately 

 been placed some feet apart, had the appearance of two " hills," one 

 of the two having nine and the other twelve stalks ascending from a 

 common base. The tallest were over ten feet in height, with a diame- 

 ter of nearly two inche.'', and they would have become yet taller had 



