10 june 2023

it is in the eighties ( fahrenheit...somewhere in the upper twenties for the rest of you ) which is about the sort of weather the tesointe and maize ( and something has been rooting around in both...i have replanted maize...tesointe may have to ride out its fate this season )...so here are some photos of the relatives...

teosinte...

maize...

teosinte...

maize...hopefully they will reach maturity...there are no guarantees...elsewhere back there...

guess where some pumpkin shells were composted last autumn...

the everbearing strawberries are ever blooming...

the mulberries are still green...and still growing in size...

the concord grapes in the fir trees are coming along well...

as are the seedless grapes on the trellis...

and the alfalfa continues to bloom in anticipation of the bees' arrival this month...there's more...the jerusalem artichokes are still relentless and the chinese yams are defying them, while the new york import wild strawberries have set about escaping them...the asparagus is in full flower...

and being mugged by the bumblebees...there's mooseberry...and ramps...onions and more...we will get to that soon enough.

zea

a little bit of the morphology of a "wild and weedy ancestor" and its domesticated offspring...

dense yellow #2 in the field by the supermarket...

and northern tepehuan treosinte in my yard...

and again in the same order..

and again...

and one last time...

corn flowers ( tassels...i am corrected time and again...however it is a male flower )

and one from the teosinte...the family resemblance is strong in many ways...the way the ears emerge from the stalks is very close to the same...however since teoasinte has no cobs it can have multiple ears emerge from the same node as in the eighth photo...there are several examples of multiple ears on the plants...nothing uncommon about it...one thing is sure...teosinte has much more interesting support roots...

support roots

a selection of zea support roots fro comparison...from top to bottom...zea mays ( also known as "corn in a bucket " )...the extravagantly tiered support roots of northern tepehuan teosinte...the utilitarian roots of zea mays parvaglumis...and some enginered industrial support roots in the cornfield by the supermarket.

critters and seed heads

it was on the cold side for most of november but late december here has turned rainy and warmer than normal...i knew i had a few teosinte ears out back ( aside from the ones i left to shatter...just to see what happens in the spring ) and i did not want the seeds to begin to soften and rot in the moisture so i went out this morning to bring them in...and i i discovered i had fewer than expected...you can see in the top two photos that something has been grazing them...i say grazing because the ears are not opened and stripped of seeds as they would be if birds had been the culprits...something bit the seed ears off clean...so i brought in what was left to dry before i wrap them up...it seemed a good time to make some comparisons so i got out an ear of apache red maize that came from the community garden and set i on the counter to compare with some open seeds and some ears...the maize kernels are much larger than the single row of teosinte seeds but the family resemblance is still clear...from the husks on the unopened seed ears to the silks on both sets of seeds they have zea written all over them...i will be letting these seeds dry...open or in the husks...and i will be sowing some come march...the parent plant for these seeds was one i grew from seed i harvested out back in 2013..a third generation may be too much to ask but i am willing to try anyway.

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.