Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester. Revised and partly rewritten].

  • Edwin Lankester
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester. Revised and partly rewritten]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rather than to any original variance. The [ilant consists of a strong, reedy, jointed stalk, provided with large alternate leaves, almost like flags, springing from every joint. The top produces a bunch of male flowers, of various colours, which is called the tassel. Each plant bears, likewise, one or more spikes or ears, seldom so few as one, and rarely more than four or five, the most usual number being three : as many as seven have been seen occasionally on one stalk. These ears proceed from the stalk at various distances from the ground, and are closely enveloped by several thin leaves, forming a sheath, which is called the Imsk. The ears consist of a cylindri- cal substance, of the nature of pith, which is called tJie cobi), over the entire surface of which the seeds arc ranged, and fixed in eight or more straight rows, each row having generally as many as thirty or more seeds. The eyes or germs of the seeds arc in nearly radial lines from the centre of the cylinder; from these eyes proceed individual filaments of a silky appearance, and of a bi-ight green colour; the aggregate of these hang out from the point of the husk, in a thick cluster, and in this state arc called the silk. It is the office of these filaments, which are the stigmata, to receive the fin-ina, which drops from the flowers on the to]i, or tassel, and without which the ears would produce no seed—a fact which has been established by cutting olf the toj) previous to the de- velopment of its flowers, when the ears proved wholly barren. So soon as their office has been thus performed, both the tassel and the silk dry up, and put on a withered i appearance. The grains of maize are of difterent colours, the pi'c- vailing hue being yellow, of various shades, sometimes approaching to white, and at other times deepening to red. Some arc of a deep chocolate colour, others grccn- iish or olivc-coloured, and even the same cars will some- times contain grains of diflerent colours. Unlike the cereal grains which have been already described, naturalists arc at no loss in determining the native region of maize, which is confidcnily held \o be America, the Indians throughout that continent having 1 von. I. i-
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