let's talk morphology

campus was eerily quiet at six twenty in the morning of the second day of fall semester classes...but i suppose not all of us are comfortable with getting out of bed at three and getting moving...i like to watch the sun come up...i use to do it after staying out all night...but that's a story ( or stories ) for a different venue...what i was doing there was maintenance and taking some more photos to compare some facets of zea family morphology...the top photo is of the northern tepehuan teosinte flower at about 6:30 this morning...if you have a look down at the bottom photo you'll see a maize flower on the 24th of this month, just before i took the plants out of the garden...not carbon copies of one another...but they still bear a strong resemblance in the individual petals...close enough to be relatives...the center three photos are of support roots...seond from the top is northern tepeuhan teosinte...the middle photo is zea diplopersnnis, ad the fourth photo is of maize roots out on my sidewalk...all theer plants sprouted support roots, the biggest difference being that both the teosinte strains have sprouted multiple tiers of support roots while the maize kept things to just one set...the zea diploperennis has multiple branches ( tillers) emanating from a central root...individually these branches are taller than the maize plants were but they lay over closer to the ground, due in part, i think, from the greater weight stemming form all those leaves...the support roots have sprouted where the stalks are touching the ground ( i lifted them up to photograph the roots) i don't see any sign of them actually extending into the ground the way the maize roots did so i am not sure if the supplement the main roots in feeding the plant...making them a sort of stolon...or if the structure is solely for support...the northern tepehuan teosinte has sprouted multiple tiers of support roots ( five actually ) but it is by far the taller of the zea family plants both on campus and in my back yard...there certainly is physical evidence for the relationship between these three plants...i'm currently reading some papaers by mary eubanks about where eastern gamagrasss fits into the maize family tree...as soon as i feel i understand her ( and that may be a while...not because her prose is impenetrable, but because i don't have her background in genetics and that may be where the relationship is more evident than in physical appearance ) i can begin to compare structures between maize and gamagrass...if there are any that are obvious to my brain.