TRIPSACUM IN PERU 
BY 
ALEXANDER GROBMAN' 
Excepr for a single, verbal report’ that Asplund iden- 
tified ZTripsacum near Tingo Maria, Department of 
Huanuco, and considered it an escape from cultivation, 
no other literature references (including Weberbauer (1) 
and MacBride (2) ) give any indication that T’ripsacum 
might be native to Peru. 
The identification of races of tripsacoid maize on the 
eastern slopes of the Andes and in the Amazon basin of 
Peru had suggested the probable occurrence of T'ripsa- 
cum sympatric with maize and might explain the intro- 
gression of tripsacoid characters into maize in these 
areas (3). 
Cutler and Anderson (4) presented evidence of wide- 
spread distribution of 7?ipsacum in the Amazon basin. 
They considered all of the South American specimens 
that they studied as belonging to T'’ripsacum australe. 
I have found T7'ripsacum growing wild twice in the Hual- 
laga valley region of north-central Peru (July 4, 19638). 
The first collection was made at Puerto Rico, formerly 
called Juanjuicillo, on a river bank on the east side of the 
1 Formerly Director of Research, Division of Experimentation, Ser- 
vicio de Investigacién y Promocién Agraria, Lima, Pera. 
? Kindly supplied by Dr. Ramon Ferreyra, Director of Museo de 
Historia Natural, Javier Prado, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San 
Marcos, Lima. 
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