164 The Journal of Heredity 
DEFECTIVE SEEDS 
Some completely aborted seeds with a few 
partially aeveloped ones are shown. The 
empty shells, fiattened between normal 
seeds, are not conspicuous until the latter 
are removed. Photograph by R. A. Emer- 
son. (Fig. 12.) 
fertilization (Fig. 11). Where the empty 
shells occur between normal seeds they 
are flattened to a thin sheet and are in- 
conspicuous until the seeds are removed 
from the cob. Then the aborted seeds 
stand out plainly, scattered over the 
rachis, as shownin Figure 12. In other 
segregating ears (as in Fig. 13) the 
defective seeds contain some embryo. 
and endosperm material. Such partially 
developed seeds are small and usually 
very much shriveled (Figs. 10 and 14). 
In other cases the seeds are not shriveled 
but are smaller and have a dull opaque 
appearance quite distinct from the 
transluscence of dent and flint seeds 
having corneous endosperm. 
Where there is considerable material 
in the defective seeds they may germi- 
nate, but usually very poorly, and when 
they do, the seedlings are extremely 
weak, abnormal in appearance, and 
make a slow growth. .In a few cases 
the seeds germinate well and the seed- 
lings appear normal. Generally the 
seedlings are lacking in normal green 
chlorophyll color. 
INHERITANCE OF DEFECTIVE SEEDS 
The normal seeds of the 8 segregating 
ears were planted and again self-fer- 
tilized. In every case the same condi- 
tion appeared in some of the ears of the 
progeny, as shown in the Table. In 
addition, 5 ears which were not con- 
sidered to be segregating also gave clearly 
segregating earsin the progeny. All the 
‘ars were examined for this character 
while they were being shelled off, but 
no defective seeds in sufficient amounts 
on these parent ears were seen to classify 
these five ears at that time as segregat- 
ing. However, a photographic record 
of the original ears was made and this 
shows that three of the specimens were 
probably segregating. At least a few 
defective seeds can be seen, although 
the numbers are small. The remaining 
two ears show no signs of defective 
seeds and the ears are well developed, 
with about 500 seeds on each. Yet one 
clearly segregating ear was» found in 
each of the two progenies in a total of 
five and six selfed ears in the two lots. 
This small number of segregating cars. 
