Friday, November 28, 2014

still more zea morphology

we are only a few weeks into the indoor season and the advantages of growing several strains of the same plant family are beginning to show up...at least from a morphological viewpoint...the zea mexicana annual teosinte in the top two photos is clearly tillering...it's on the left side of the plant growing from the base...lots of grasses tiller...wheat and rye do...and so does maize as the third photo shows...maize is a grass and a member of the zea family and so there is no surprise that cousins should share traits...the northern tepehuan teosinte in the fourth photo is not tillering...and it won't...that variety doesn't tiller...it branches as you can see in the fifth photo of the plant out in the yard...two different strategies for producing more ears and seeds...and mentioning ears and seeds gives me an opportunity to post a photo of some opened ears and shattered seeds...so i will.

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