may in some cases be as long or longer than the ear itself. 
In the La Perra maize, the internodes of the shank are 
extremely short and the entire shank is correspondingly 
so. In the twelve specimens mentioned above, the length 
of the shank varies from 6.0 mm. to 83.0 mm. and the 
average is 8.6 mm. 
Among modern varieties of maize, ears with short, 
slender shanks are usually borne at a high position on the 
culm. On any given plant, there is usually a strong in- 
verse correlation between the relative height of ear and 
length of shank. Galinat (1954) found that the shank 
lengths for twelve ears borne on a single stalk of Argen- 
tine pop corn varied from 19 mm. in the uppermost ear 
to 184 mm. inthe lowermost. The short shanks of the La 
Perra maize, therefore, might suggest that the ears of this 
maize were borne high on the stalk. The data of Well- 
hausen et al, as well as the internode patterns illustrated 
in their Plate VIII, tend to support this suggestion. 
They show that plants of modern Nal-Tel have, on the 
average, 4.3 leaves above the ear and that the internodes 
above the ear are relatively short. This is also true of 
some modern pop corn varieties, and it may suggest that 
a high position of the ear on the culm is a primitive char- 
acter. If so, the early maize of La Perra Cave may have 
had this character, as it clearly had others, in accentuated 
form. Indeed, it is possible that primitive maize may 
have borne its ear immediately below the tassel (Galinat, 
1954). In some of our cultures of tunicate and half- 
tunicate maize, we have encountered a number of plants 
in which small ears were borne at the first node below 
the tassel. The husks on such ears are few in number and 
lack flag leaves and ligules, although ears borne lower 
on the same stalks may have prominent flag leaves and 
conspicuous ligules. These sub-tasse]l ears are enclosed 
by the husks at pollinating time and for several weeks 
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