RAMOSE INFLORESCENCE IN MAIZE. 
SECOND GENERATION. 
The ears of the first generation and, for that matter, the normal 
ears of the second generation provide no very good characters for 
a quantitative comparison with the parents, since the branches are 
suppressed. The plants of the second generation were grown from 
self-pollinated F x seed. No difficulty was encountered in classifying 
them as to their ra- 
mose or normal na- 
ture from the stand- 
point of the tassel, 
and although it was 
apparent that the 
ramose tassels were 
variable, the conical 
configuration left no 
ground for reason- 
able doubt. Both the 
normal and the ra- 
mose segregates of 
the second genera- 
tion showed the ef- 
fect of hybridiza- 
tion, behaving in a 
manner entirely 
comparable with 
that commonly ex- 
pected in size char- 
acters (fig. 2). Al- 
though the normal 
and ramose segre- 
gates of the second 
generation were 
easily distinguished, 
it is apparent from 
the measurements in 
Table I that the tas- 
sels of the ramose plants are not, on the average, as ramose as those of 
the Ramosa parent, and likewise the tassels of the normal plants are 
not as extreme in form as those of the Gordo parent. This is shown 
graphically in the central spike index in figure 3. In each case the 
alterations are in the direction of the F x . Thus the ramose character, 
while behaving in a general way as a unit in inheritance, is capable of 
being resolved into several parts which behave in inheritance as mul- 
tiple-factor size characters (Table I). The counts, based on the con- 
figuration of the tassel, gave 130 ramose and 399 normal, or 24.6±1.3 
per cent ramose. 
30 
as 
r"i 
p 
• ■■* 
ft: /S 
/o 
TU 
i-J ; 
J~L 
£ 
L"k. 
r* 
i a 1 

10 Z0 30 40 50' 60 70 80 30 100 
4 
14 Z4 34 44 54 64 74 64 94 104 
Fig. 1. — Frequency distributions with respect to the cen- 
tral spike index in maize plants of the Ramosa and 
Gordo varieties and of the first generation of this hybrid. 
Polygon at left, Ramosa ; at right Gordo ; inclosed in 
broken line, first-generation hybrid. 
