The number of leaves which attach to the main axis of the maize plant is greatly different according to its form or variety, while it is slightly different according to the conditions under which each individual of the same form or variety is cultivated.
The leaf trace strands are conveniently divided by the present writer into the following three types in view of their vascular course. The first type is represented by the leaf trace strands which are medullary ones. Some of these trace strands, after having entered into the pith, migrate gradually towards the periphery in each node below; while the othersenter into m ore central part of the pith in the second node, and then descend further downwards, coming back gradually towards the periphery.
The second type is represented by the leaf trace strands which are combined sooner or later with the outermost peripheral bundles and do not become medullary; the third type, by those which enter into the cortical part of the stem at the node and usually disappear soon.
It was described by the former authors that the medullary leaf traces are combined with the peripheral bundles of the stem after they have come back to the periphery; while in the observation of the writer, the medullary leaf traces, after descending independently through from one to seven internodes, are combined each with the same kind in the pith-sometimes in the center of the pith. Thus, these leaf trace strands themselves or those combined each other descend further, migrating gradually so near to the periphery as to be difficult to distinguish in each internode from the outermost peripheral bundles, but they are evidently situated at the medullary part in each node, until they are connected with the outermost peripheral bundles at the lowest part of the stem.
It was hitherto believed that the medullary leaf traces come back at the lower node to the same peripheral side of the stem into which they entered from the leaves, while the writer found that they frequently migrate across the pith towards quite the opposite side of the stem.
The large leaf trace bundle is protected on its dorsal side by a mass of the sclerenchymatous tissue which is left alone in the cortex of the stem after the bundle has entered into the pith. Afterwards, a small vascular bundle is differentiated in the mass of the sclerenchymatous tissue thus left alone, and it is connected directly with the outermost peripheral bundles at the same node.
The stair-like course of the medullary bundles seems to be caused by the intercalary elongation of the stem, for that course is manifest in those parts or stages in which the internode is short.
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