DESCRIPTIONS OF TRIBES AND GENERA. 41 



fruited variety, the resulting grain will be yellow with 

 grayish-black flecks. 



Uses. — The very nourishing meal is. sometimes made 

 into mush (" Polenta") by boiling, but its exclusive 

 use gives rise to a skin disease ; it is also made into 

 cakes (" Tortillas"), and sometimes mixed with wheat 

 flour, or wheat and rye, to make bread (" Brown bread " 

 of New England). The unripe ears are roasted or 

 pickled in vinegar as a vegetable ; from the fruit the 

 natives of South America prepare an alcoholic drink 

 (" Chica"), another (" Pulque de Mahiz") is made in 

 Mexico by the fermentation of the very sweet sap that is 

 pressed out of the stem. In North America efforts have 

 been made to make sugar from this juice. The boiled 

 fruit makes an excellent food for swine and poultry, and 

 the entire plant, even the straw, is an excellent fodder 

 for cattle. The husks are used for making paper as well 

 as for hats, matting, and for filling beds, etc. The large 

 variety horse-tooth maize) as well as that with striped 

 leaves is used for lawn decorations in ornamental 

 gardening. 



Maize was imported into Europe soon after the dis- 

 covery of America, at about the same time that Northern 

 Europe received Buckwheat from Central Asia and 

 Russia. In view of the wide distribution it had attained 

 when America was discovered, and the manner of its cul- 

 tivation, its culture in this country must be very ancient, 

 though older discoveries are wanting, since the finding of 

 maize-kernels in the renowned graveyard of Ankon in 

 Lima is not reliable, for determining its antiquity, for 

 those graves were evidently used after as well as before 

 the discovery of America. 



3. (36) Tripsacum L. One to several upright terminal 

 spikes, besides those in the leaf axils. The $ spikelets 

 in pairs at each joint of the axis, two-flowered ; the ? 

 single, one-flowered ; styles connate near the base, stig- 

 mas long. Capsule or false fruit as in EueMcena, but 

 separating less obliquely ; at each side of the base of 

 the empty glumes (as in EueMcena) there is a cavity for 



