128 WEATHERWAX: MorRPHOLOGY OF FLOWERS OF ZEA Mays 
and to a number of friends who have supplied me with seed of 
some of the varieties of corn used. 
INFLORESCENCE 
In the typical case the male and female inflorescences are 
borne on separate parts of the same maize plant, the former being 
the tassel and the latter the forerunner of the ear. Exceptions 
to this separation of the two types of flower sometimes occur and 
will be discussed later. 
The male inflorescence is a broadly expanded panicle, often 
more than a foot in length, and made up of a central axis and 
several spreading rachids. Upon each rachis and the central axis 
the spikelets are arranged in pairs or, more rarely, in groups 0% 
three or four; one spikelet of each group is usually pedicelled, 
while the others are sessile. 
The female inflorescence is a thickened spike, later to develop 
into the ear with its woody cob. Upon the axis of this 
inflorescence are borne a number of double rows of spikelets, 
the rows being double because of the pairing of the spikelets, and 
from these are produced an even number of rows of grains. 
Normally the minimum number of rows is eight, and it may vary 
in even numbers from this to twenty-four or more. The whole 
female inflorescence is enclosed in the husks, which are modified 
leaf sheaths borne upon the short branch that bears the ear. 
It is very probable that the ear has developed from a primitive 
bisexual inflorescence, which had a structure similar to that of 
the male inflorescence of the plant at the present time; but 
Harshberger (1) and Montgomery (2), who have made extensive 
studies of this, disagree as to how this step actually took places 
the one holding that the rachids of the primitive inflorescence 
united to form the ear, and the other maintaining that it was only 
the central spike of the tassel that persisted. Good arguments — 
are found to support each view, and some other evidences not 
mentioned by either of the above, but having an important bearing 
upon the question, are now under observation and will be made 
the subject of a future report. 
The normal male inflorescence of the plant at the present time 
is generally believed to have resulted from the suppression of the : 
pistils of the hermaphrodite flowers of the primitive inflorescence: 
