22 
Journal oj Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXX, No. 1 
1 sparsely hairy whether the hairs were 
long, midlength, or short. A few 
kernels with hairs abundant, but so 
very short that they could not be placed 
in the abundant midlength class, were 
also thrown into the “few” class. 
Many different classifications of the 
basal hairs in the oat kernel have been 
used, and nearly all such classifications 
have objectionable features. All classi¬ 
fications must be more or less arbi¬ 
trary, as they are based on number Or 
length of these bristles. A few authors 
have used a combination of these two 
characters. Although realized to have 
objectionable features, the writers be-' 
lieve the following proposed classifica¬ 
tion might have been followed with 
profit; 
1. Long. 3. Short. 
Many. Many. 
Few. Few.- 
2. Midlength. ." 4. Absent. 
Many, 
,Few, > - . ’ • 
In describing 'large numbers of oat 
kernels the writers find all of these 
classes and subclasses to exist. The 
different classes of . basal hairs used in 
this study are shown in Plate ,2. 
AWNS - 
Various authors have used different 
terms for designating the different kinds 
of awns. Here again any classification 
r must of necessity be an arbitrary Qne 
and a? such is subject to differences of 
opinion. The terms strong, twisted* 
geniculate, and weak have been rather 
loosely usjed. by one author in describ¬ 
ing the aWn of the oat. Another 
author has designated different awn 
conditions by the. terms strong, inter¬ 
mediate, "weak, and awnless. In, de¬ 
scribing the material on which data 
are presented in this paper the terms 
(1) twisted; (2) nontwisted, long (oyer 
$ 15 mm. in length); (3) nontwisted, 
short (less than 15 mm. in length); 
, and (4) absent have been used, 
The twisted awns usually are , asso¬ 
ciated with the wild forms. These 
awns often are strongly kneed or gen¬ 
iculate. The percentage of the length 
of the awn which is twisted varies. 
In some cases where the twisting is 
less pronounced, and only oiie or two 
twists occur, the bending is too slight 
to be termed kneed, although bending 
apparently is very closely associated 
with twisting. Of the nontwisted 
awns the long awn may be fully as 
long as the twisted one but it has no 
twisting at its base and hence practic¬ 
ally always lacks the dark color asso¬ 
ciated with the twisted base. The 
nontwisted, short awns are somewhat 
more variable than the other awn 
classes discussed. They are always 
slender, 15 mm. or less in length, 
grading downward to mere bristlelike 
appendages, sometimes more like hairs 
than awns. In kernels having no 
trace of awns the awn is said to be 
absent. The various oat awns are 
shown in Plate 3. 
LEMMA COLOR 
> t ( 
The oat lemma is of various colors < 
The principal ones recognized in pre¬ 
vious descriptions have been black, 
gi;ay, fed, yellow, and white. In the 
present classification many- kernels 
which were not dark enough in be 
called black but too dark to he termed 
either gray or red are called brown. 
A few authors previously have recog¬ 
nized brown as a kernel color but gen¬ 
erally have considered it analogous, to 
black. 
In the present - paper the lemmas 
Were classified according to color as 
follows: , <; 
Black, dark brown, light brown, red, 
variegated, yellow, white. The colors 
of the; lemmas in Burt" are shown in 
Plates ;4 to, 6, inclusive. The florets 
with sorcalled variegated lemmas 
proved very diverse when, their progeny 
were grown and this color subdivision 
was abandoned. 
^ EXPERIMENTAL MATERIAL . 
In 1920 bulk lots of nine different 
strains of the Burt oat growing in the 
crop improvement nursery of the 
agronomy department at the Kansas 
Agricultural Experiment Station were 
chosen for the variability studies. 
This material showed considerable 
variation not only among the different 
strains but within each of the strains, 
and was exceptionally well suited for 
such a study. The strains used were 
Kansas Nos. 5020, 5211, 5219, 5022, 
6004, 6052, 6076, 6090, and 6094. The 
accession records on file at the depart- 
EXPLANATORY LEGEND FOR PLATE 2 
A.—Abundant long basal hairs, characteristic of many wild oats. B.—Abundant midlength basal hairs* 
a condition somewhat intermediate between wild and cultivated varieties. C.—Few basal hairs. In 
nearly all cases these hairs are short but rarely kernels are found bearing only a few long hairs. 
