14 Bulletin VII. 1. 



the stem, and the pistillate or female spikelets are in short (two 

 to three inches) jointed spikes, which are usually crowded on short 

 branches from the upper leaf-axils. These clusters of spikes are 

 enveloped in broad, leafy bracts, and each spike is also surrounded 

 by a bract. The somewhat flattened and obtusely triangular 

 joints of the spike are about one quarter of an inch long. There is a 

 single spikelet embedded in each joint, its long thread-like style 

 projecting from the bracts like the "silk" of mai^e. (See figure 

 32, page 78 of Part I, of "The Grasses of Tennessee." 



The variety which has been cultivated in various parts of the 

 South and West has the habit of tillering, or sending up many 

 (twenty to fifty) stalks from the same root. From this habit the 

 bulk of fodder produced on an acre is very large, probably equalled 

 by no other grass. When Teosinte was first introduced into this 

 country, it was referred to by Dr. Asa Gray as "possibly affording 

 an opportunity for one to make millions of blades of grass grow 

 where none of any account ever grew before." It is reported that 

 the average annual crop for three years at the Kansas station was 

 more than twenty-three tons of green forage per acre. It is liked 

 by all kinds of stock and has especial value as a green fodder when 

 other forage is dried up. It may be cut several times during a 

 season, but nearly as good results are obtained from a single cut- 

 ting before there is any frost. The stalks are tender, and there is 

 no waste in the fodder, whether green or dry. One pound of seed 

 to the acre planted in drills three feet apart and thinned to a foot 

 apart in the drills is recommended. 



This grass was successfully grown at the Station in 1889. No 

 fruit was formed, nor does this variety fruit here, excepting in the 

 warmer regions near the gulf coast. Last year (1893) a variety 

 was grown at the Station from seed collected in Mexico by Mr. C. 

 G. Pringle. The plants did not tiller, but sent up single stalks in 

 all respects like the Mais de Coyote {Zea canina) which was grown 

 side by side with it. To the casual observer the plants appeared 

 to be all alike, and from a little distance the lot would have been 

 mistaken for a good growth of field corn, eight or nine feet high. 

 In both, the stalks were branched above, and along these branches 

 v^ere formed the small "ears" in the case of Zta canina, and the fas- 

 cicles of fruiting spikes in the Teosinte, which ripened before 

 frost. 



2. ZEA Linn. Sp. PI. 971 (1753)- 



Spikelets unisexual, monoecious; the staminate two-flowered in 

 pairs, one sessile the other pedicellate, along the numerous 

 branches of a terminal panicle; the pistillate one-flowered, sessile, 

 crowded in several rows along a much-thickened continuous axis 

 arising from the lower leaf-axils, and closely enveloped by numer- 

 ous large foliaceous bracts. Glumes four, awnless, those of the 



