50 HAKSIIHICKC.EK : 



ears, or branches, consist of two perfect, pistillate flowers, a 

 probable reversionary condition, becanse the number of 

 glumes, or scales, calls for two flowers. In ordinary maize, 

 only one of these flowers is perfect; the other is absent. 

 Kach of these separate flowers reveals a partially developed 

 ovarj', or fruit. The terminal part of two of the secondary 

 flower spikes is entirely made up of spikelets of two male 

 flowers, so that we have in all of the spikes, lari^e and small, 

 what botanists are pleased to term the androgynous condition, 

 where male and female flowers are on the same floral axis, 

 but in different parts of it. These ears are not inclosed by 

 husks, but at the base of the cluster are small, green leaves, 

 consisting of the usual parts, viz. : sheath, ligule and blade. 

 This abnormal specimen strengthens the conclusion reached 

 by me in 1S93, that the ear of corn is an altered branch. The 

 leaves of the branch have their blades almost entirely absent, 

 and the ligule also is missing. These leaf bases, or shields, 

 form the husks which surround the ear of ordinary corn, and 

 between which at the top the threads of silk protrude. Occa- 

 sionally in field corn we get two or three smaller ears tucked 

 away between the husks that cover the larger, central ear. 

 This condition of branched ears, which in several cases bear 

 two-ranked spikelets, suggests the branched, two-ranked ears 

 obtained when ordinary black Mexican field corn is crossed 

 with teosinte {Jiur/ih/'jia vicxicaJia), and which I described 

 some years ago in Garden and Poorest (ix : 522), and also 

 in Contributions from the Botanical Laboratory of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania (1901). In Bailey's Encyclope- 

 dia of American Agriculture (Article Maize), I refer to 

 the theory of Montgomery, who believes that in the process 

 of ev^olution the cluster of pistillate spikes in teosinte were 

 developed from the lateral branches of a tassel-like structure, 

 while the corn ear developed from the central spike. It is 

 jjrobable, according to Montgomery, that the progenitor of 

 teosinte and maize was a large, much-branched grass, each 

 branch being terminated by a tassel-like structure, bearing 



