Grain in the Glume of Wheat

Abstract

IN the wheats, as in most grasses, there are empty glumes at the base of each side of the spikelets, and the florets consist of a lemma (flowering glume), palea and flower. In Triticum vulgare Host, ten or eleven flower primordia are formed in most spikelets1 and although in some varieties under good conditions many spikelets carry four or five grains, in most varieties grain is produced only in the two or three basal florets, and the higher florets are undeveloped. The only recorded regular departure from this system is the basal sterility found in some speltoid mutants of T. vulgare 2. In these the lemma of the first floret of most spikelets is empty, and in one mutant both the basal florets are sterile: the initiation of the flower primordia is partially or completely suppressed3. One of the more rare abnormalities of flower development in normal varieties is the occurrence of rudimentary florets in the axils of the glumes3.