more support roots

the outdoor teosinte season is all but done...the weather this coming week will kill the plants and we will wait til spring for backyard developments...the top two photos are of support roots on northern tepehuan teosinte...it is an annual strain and the subject of most of the photos of teosinte on this blog...it had two tiers of support roots and that's it...it was not a huge plant and it was in an upright position its whole life...so fewer support roots...the third and fourth photos are of zea diploperennis...a perennial strain and it obviously has multiple tiers of support roots...the reason for that is that while the central stalks can become quite tall the tillers tend to lay out across the ground and so the support roots keep the stem off the soil...tall annual plants tend to lay over as well and they can grow multiple tiers of roots...just not this particular annual plant...thew bottom two photos are of dense yellow #2 field corn support roots...there is only one tier of roots so in that they resemble the annual plant...but the roots are much more robust likening them to the perennial strain's roots...the shared traits are odd...the perennial strain of teosinte physically resembles the field corn much more closely in areas like leaf shape and support roots while the annual strain has support roots at the base like the field corn and produces seed ears...grow all three plants together and the shared traits are readily observable...you need to be a geek first though.