SEuiiis A. rAMCAL'KJ:. 



wSpilcelets one-, rarely two-flowered, when two-flowered the sec- 

 ond or terminal one is perfect, the first or lower one being either 

 staniinate or neuter, rachilla articulated below the empty glumes, 

 the spikelets falling from the pedicels entire, either singly, in 

 groups, or together with the joints of an articulate rachis. 



Tribe I. MAYDE^. 



Spikelets unisexual, the staminate forming a part of the inflor- 

 escence with the pistillate, or each in a separate inflorescence on 

 the same plant. Flowering glumes hyaline or much less firm in 

 texture than the outer ones. Axis of the female spikelets usually 

 articulated. 



This is a small tribe, numbering only sixteen species classed in 

 seven genera. They are nearly all natives of the tropics, chiefly 

 in the Old World. Indian Corn or Maize is our best known ex- 

 ample of the Mayde?e. 



1. EUCHL^NA Schrad. Ind. Sem. Hort. Goett (1832). 



Spikelets unisexual, monoecious, the staminate two-flowered, in 

 pairs, one sessile the other pedicellate, arranged in terminal pan- 

 iculate racemes; the pistillate one-flowered, sessile and solitary at 

 each joint of an obliquely articulate rachis of a simple spike. The 

 spikes fasciculate in the leaf axils, and each more or less envel- 

 oped by a foliaceous bract. Glumes of the staminate spikelets 

 four, acute, the first two membranaceous empty; flowering glumes 

 smaller and like their paleas, hyaline. Stamens three. Glumes 

 of the pistillate spikelets four, the outer one broad and boat- 

 shaped, smooth, soon becoming very hard, surrounding the inner 

 glumes and narrow rachis; second glume empty, coriaceous; third 

 glume hyaline, with a palea but no flower; fourth or flowering- 

 glume and its palea hyaline. Styles very long, filiform, shortly 

 bifid at the apex. 



Tall annuals with long and broad leaves, closely resembling In- 

 dian corn in habit. 



Species one, with several varieties, in Mexico and Central Amer- 

 ica. 



I. Euchlaena Mexicana, Schrad. (E. iuxurians.) Teosinte or Gaute- 



mala-grass. 



A stout, leafy annual, with upright stalks eight to ten feet high, 



resembling Indian corn, to which it is closely related botanically. 



The staminate or male flowers form a ''spindle" at the summit of 



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