TEACHERS DEPARTMENT. 
26 l 
the embryo, the correlation of single cotyledon and parallel veined 
leaves, the development of brace roots, jointed stems and the non¬ 
branching habit are all familiar facts to be brought out in this 
plant. 
Comparatively few people know that the tassels of Indian corn 
constitute the staminate flowers and that the silk are the stigmas 
of the pistillate flowers. In this connection it may be of interest 
to teachers of botany that corn plants germinated in the labora¬ 
tory and transplanted to flower pots in the Wardian case were 
brought into flowering condition. Restricted ' soil area and the 
limited amount of sunshine of the short winter days resulted in 
formation of dwarf plants, but notwithstanding the dwarf habit, 
they showed excellently all the important facts to be brought out 
in the study of Indian corn. 
When only a few inches high brace roots were put out and 
when only fifteen inches high staminate flowers began to de¬ 
velop. A week or two later the pistillate flowers and embryo 
ears began to show. Whether ears would have ripened was not 
ascertained, as all the plants were used for the demonstration of 
the position, formation and development of the floral parts. 
Enough plants were grown for all the tables in the laboratory, 
the living material being supplemented by stalks, staminate, 
pistillate flowers and ears of green corn preserved in formalin. 
A matured dried plant saved from the autumn harvest was ex¬ 
hibited to show the size the plants would have attained under 
favorable conditions. At this time also the necessity of proper 
soil and abundance of sunshine for photosynthesis was em¬ 
phasized. 
It is always , easy in going through a corn field to find flower 
clusters containing both pistillate and staminate flowers. Such 
are often found on plants attacked by the corn smut, the regular 
processes of the plants being interfered with by the parasite. 
Material of this preserved in formalin was also shown as ex¬ 
amples of the frequent variation to be met with in nature. 
As corn in the field is only a few inches high in our latitude in 
June, and as also at that time we have a profusion of other 
material, the advantages are obvious of studying in the winter the 
