60 Study of Right- and Left- Handedness 



The accompanying ground-plan (Diagram 3) will make this convention 

 clear. 



The first leaf of a Maize seedling is folded in the same way as in 

 the other species of Gramineae here considered : both right- and left- 

 handed seedlings occurring. The question whether there is any 

 connection between the direction of folding and the position of the 

 seed on the cob was answered in the affirmative by Macloskie', who 

 stated that " The grains arising on adjoining rows in the ear of corn are 

 of different castes, and produce antidromic plants'- " : and again, " In 

 the particular ear e.xamined the grains of the dextral row were all with 

 dextral embryos, and those of the sinistral row had sinistral embryosV 

 In 1910 I sowed the seeds of rather an old cob of Maize, keeping the 



Diagram 3. 



rows separate : comparatively few of the seeds germinated, but these 

 were quite sufficient to show that both left- and right-handed seedlings 

 were produced from the same orthostichy. I announced my failure to 

 confirm Macloskie's statement in my earlier paper (p. .503). Later, 

 Professor Macloskie sent me a copy of a further paper^ of whose 

 existence I was unaware, in which he corrects his previous statements 

 as follows : — " I now find that two-thirds of the grains in the row 

 opposite my right hand have the left margin of their leaves external, 

 and the other third have their right margin external, these proportions 

 being reversed for the row opposite my left hand." 



' " Dimorphism and Rhizomycete of Maize," Princeton Coll. Bulletin, v. p. 84, 

 Nov. 1893. 



^ "Antidromy in Plants," Amer. Naturalist, xxix. p. 973, Oct. 1895. 



^ "Antidromy of Plants," Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xxii. p. 379, Sept. 1895. 



* "Antidromy in Plants," Princeton Coll. Bulletin, vii. p. 107, Nov. 1895. 



