ancestry

the ancestor/domesticate dyad is a sort of a hobby with me ( much less destructive than some past pastimes ) the fuse for which was lit by kathy forgey a ways back...so my yard is a kind of morphological garden of examples...one of those...and one which i aim to try to grow as often as possible...is teosinte/maize...without getting mired in the corn wars here let's just say tesointe represents at least one maize ancestor and hope the folks at the doebley lab don't read this...the flower emerging more fully from the teosinte plant is mirrored by corn flowers which look much like them...( there is an earwig which has taken up residence in there...fine as long as it stays in there when i'm around...if it comes out it is toast )...when flowers emerge ears are along soon....you can see the first branches emerging from auxiliary buds in the third photo...more space for ears in a bit...the fourth photo is of a rapidly maturing teosinte plant ( caged for its protection ) and the fifth is of some maize being grown for purely morphological comparisons...if it manages to produce the tree rats will eat it...i have no illusions in this...you can compare if you like...i do it all the time...the last photo is of an unrelated double bulbed garlic plant i popped out of the garden this morning...just another genetic mutation.