Produced by Crossing Tcosiiitc and Maize. 235 



or variety of Eucldcpna viexicana ? If the latter, then Zea 

 canina becomes a mongrel plant. Or is Indian corn a species 

 of Eiichlcsna, closely related by consanguinity to Euchlccna 

 mexicana ? These questions can only be answered by the 

 discovery of the wild plants concerned in the problem of the 

 origin of maize.' The following formulae present the h)po- 

 thetical position of the writer upon this question. Common 

 names are used to prevent the confusion of synonyms. 



Teosinte 9 wild, crossed by the partially ameliorated pro- 

 genitor of Maize (a species of Euchlcztia) ^T probably pro- 

 duces the ordinary Indian Corn {Zea mays L.), and the 

 second cross known by actual experiment to occur, viz : 



Euchkena mexicana Schrad. 9 X Zea mays L. cT = Zea can- 

 ina Watson, the " maiz de coyote " of the Alexicans. 



Until this purely theoretical view is established, it is the best 

 and the safest course to pursue to keep closely to the known 

 facts concerning these cereal plants, teosinte and maize, rele- 

 gating theoretical considerations to the place kept for unestab- 

 lished hypotheses, the botanical Gehenna. 



1 1896. Harshberger, Garden and Forest, IX, p. 522, where theoretical consid- 

 erations are given. 



