EAMOSE INFLORESCENCE IN MAIZE. 



in comparison with a typical ramose ear in Plates VI to X. This 

 series could be expanded by the addition of still other intermediate 

 ears, but it is believed that these are enough to show the degree of 

 variability. 



CORRELATION OF THE EAR CHARACTERS OF THE SECOND 



GENERATION. 



The correlations of the ear characters with the tassel characters 



for these F^ segre- 



gates have been cal- 

 culated and are sum- 

 marized in Table II. 

 The highest corre- 

 lation found between 

 the 5-ear and 4-tassel 

 characters is that of 

 0.546 between the 

 total number of 

 branches on the ear 

 and the same char- 

 acter of the tassel. 

 The next highest 

 correlation is —0.406 

 between the number 

 of branches in the 

 tassel and the termi- 

 nal spike index of 

 the ear. This index 

 is in a sense comple- 

 mentary to the num- 

 ber of branches on 

 the ear, the correla- 

 tion between these 

 two characters being 

 -0.642. 



The only other 

 significant correla- 

 tion which does not 

 comprise a measure 

 of the number of tas- 

 sel branches as one 

 character is a rather 

 unexpected correla- 

 tion of 0.398 between the lengths of pistillate and staminate in- 

 florescences, which may be an indication of general vigor. 



Among the ear characters the only significant correlations obtained 

 which are not explained readily as being measures of the same char- 

 acteristics are the coefficients of 0.756 between the number of 



10 ZO 30 W 60 60 70 80 90 100 

 ^ 1^ U 3^ 9^ ^'^ 6^ ?^ 8^ 9^ m 



Fig. 3. — Frequency distributions with respect to the cen- 

 tral spike index in maize plants of the Ramosa and 

 Gordo varieties and of the normal and ramose segre- 

 gates of their second-generation hybrids. Polygons in- 

 closed in solid lines : At left, Ramosa ; at right, Gordo. 

 Polygons inclosed in dotted lines : At left, ramose seg- 

 regates ; at right, normal segregates. The populations 

 of Gordo and of the normal and ramose segregates have 

 been plotted on the basis of 69 individuals, to facilitate 

 comparison with Ramosa. 



