Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/65

Rh rudimentary (Fig. 9). The lodicules are very prominent in the staminate flowers, and will usually be found more or less reduced in hermaphrodite flowers, but they entirely disappear in the pistillate flowers.

The lower rudimentary flowers may be found in the pistillate flowers of all types of cultivated corn (Fig. 12). The abortive ovary is soon absorbed, but the palet and glume remain to form a part of the 'chaff' on the ordinary corn cob. The development of the central spike into an ear may now be easily traced. First, the pedicellate spikelet in each pair of spikelets becomes sessile so that we have a pair of sessile spikelets as in Fig. 5, c. Then the upper flower in each spikelet becomes a perfect pistillate flower, while the lower flower in each spikelet becomes an abortive pistillate flower. The pairs of spikelets on the central spike are in four to eleven or more rows, so that by the mere development of the central spike of the tassel into