BOTANY. 857 . 
Now examine the male branch, with its weak structure and ‘“de- 
velopment,” and we find that it exhausted its whole growing force 
in half a dozen weak nodes, with scarcely the apology for a leaf 
at any of the nodes. Compare this with the numerous fat husk 
blades, which are the morphological analogies of the leafy bracts 
on the male branch, and even Dr. Hough’s theory of ‘develop- 
_ ment” fails. Then the male panicle is only a female which has lost 
the vital power to combine. If the (usually four) two ranked lower 
branchlets of the male panicle had the vital power to combine* 
with an arrested central axis, and the other high vital powers of 
the female ear also act, we should håve an eight rowed ear of 
corn, instead of a male tassel. ‘Some of the specimens” ap- 
peared, to Dr. Hough, “as if the cob had separated into several 
Segments,” because the male tassel had gained more than usual 
vital force, and came nearly reaching a perfect ear. This, however, 
is all very clear to those who are familiar with the morphology of 
the corn plant, but which they may readily be excused for mis- 
taking who have only gone so far as to imagine that “a spike 
(ear) is only an undeveloped branch, sometimes having two or 
three internodes it is true, but generally sessile. It answers 
very well for descriptive botany, but leads to terrible mistakes 
here. 
In regard to Dr. Hough’s facts in relation to the sexual changes 
in the Indian corn, I can bear testimony to their complete accu- 
racy; and I can see that it is only his failure to appreciate their 
morphological value, and the real bearing of my facts on his own 
observations, that he has been led to regard them as favoring a 
View the reverse of mine. 
My position is simply this —a male flower and a female flower ` 
are essentially the same in their early embryological conditions. 
Morphology shows that these early identical parts may take either 
one form (male) or another (female); and I have shown, as I 
claim, that the physiological law which governs this morpho- 
logical development, is a higher vital power to turn nutritive forces 
towards the female than the male transformation—or as I have 
expressed it in my original paper, ‘‘It is the highest types of vi- 
tality (not gross development) that take on the female form.”— 
T. Mernan, 
i understand how high vital power, and the ability to combine parts, go together 
_ Se€ my paper on Adnation in Conifers in Chicago vol. of Proc. Amer. Assoc. 
