PHILIPPINE AGRICULTURE 



stigma 



style 



bearing usually eight to ten rows of flowers. Strictly 

 speaking, the flowers are in pairs ; but the lower of each 

 two flowers is very small and undeveloped, while the other 

 is larger and apparently alone. The flower has a naked 



ovary, and an exceedingly long 

 style. The styles form the corn 

 silk. The whole inflorescence is 

 inclosed by numerous bracts, 

 which make up the husk. The 

 silk comes out through the end 

 of the husk. As the fruit ripens, 

 the axis of the inflorescence be- 

 comes the cob. Each grain of 

 maize is really a fruit, the whole 

 "ear" being composed of the cob 

 and very many single fruits, or 

 kernels. 



Pollination. Each flower of the 

 staminate inflorescence has three 

 FIG. 7 i. Diagram of the pistillate stamens, whose anthers are hung 



by the middle, and sway in the 



wind. The pollen is carried to the stigmas below chiefly 

 by the wind, but insects sometimes carry some of it. A 

 grain of pollen must fall on every stigma, for no ovary 

 can become a grain of corn unless its stigma is pollinated 

 (see Glossary). 



The wind scatters the pollen in every direction, and 

 almost all of it falls on the ground. When maize is 

 planted in large fields, the air fills with pollen, and almost 



ovary 



