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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
Fig. 11. Teosinte. (Photo by L. H. Smith.)
the seeds protected from animal marauders by husks or glumes. This is again a simplification caused by the loss of a character, as is proved by crossing the ordinary maize varieties with the variety tunicata in which the character still remains. This gives us a grass-like corn with each seed covered—a plant in many ways like teosinte. It still differs from it by but one important and several unimportant characters, and the difference can not be particularly significant, for maize and teosinte cross freely and give fertile hybrids.
The difference is this: The female or pistillate spike of maize, the part which we call the ear, consists apparently of several two-rowed
Fig. 12. A Teosinte-Maize Hybrid showing the Dominance of the Teosinte Characters. (Photo by Webber.)
