By serial microtome-sections of large numbers, the writer traced the course of vascular bundles of
Zea Mays from the terminal part of a male inflorescence, downwards to the middle part of the stem.
At the terminal of the axis, several large medullary bundles and about ten small peripheral ones ar found; the former descend downwards through at least six nodes of successive leaves, in a case examined by the writer, without any direct connction with the leaf traces, and may be regarded as cauline bundles.
At the lower part of the inflorescence axis, large medullary bundles are represented by the cauline bundles and the branch traces which originate from the lateral shoots i.e. the peduncles and the axes of secondary inflorescence. When traced downwards into the stem, they gradually migrate towards the periphery of the stem, diminishing in size, the branch traces fusing with the leaf traces.
The connecting mode of branch traces to mother axis is very simple at the uppermost part of the axis, and somewhat similar to the case of some dicotyledons, but it is more complicated in the lower part of the inflorescence, and has been described in detail.
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