V. Part of the increase in size may be the result of clus- 
ters of small ears being replaced by single large ears as 
discussed below. 
Husks 
The most important modification of a conclusion based 
on the 1948 collections, which resulted from a study of 
the 1950 specimens, is concerned with the nature of the 
husks. There were three husk systems and 47 husk frag- 
ments. In the 1948 collection we found in Stratum II 
a long husk which shows no evidence of ever having been 
shaped around an ear. Furthermore its peduncle as well 
as the peduncle of the ear which it once bore are both 
quite slender. A cob which might have been enclosed in 
this husk system was illustrated in Plate X XVII of the 
1949 report. Because this cob is much shorter than the 
husks, we reached what we then considered an ‘‘almost 
inescapable conclusion”’’ that husks at this stage in the 
evolution of maize did not tightly enclose the ear but 
instead were involucres of leaf sheaths, not greatly modi- 
fied, surrounding the base of the pistillate inflorescence 
but not completely enclosing it. ‘‘Inescapable conclu- 
sions’’ sometimes turn out, when additional evidence is 
forthcoming, to require modification. The additional 
evidence from the 1950 collections suggests that a long 
husk of this type enclosed not a single ear but a cluster 
of ears. ‘This evidence comes from two specimens: one 
husk system (Plate V, B) in which the husks are only 
slightly longer than the 1949 cob which is illustrated in 
Plate VI, Bb and the other a piece of stalk with an at- 
tached slender peduncle bearing at the base the scar of 
a branch (Plate VI, D). Considering all of these speci- 
mens together we now reach the conclusion that the long 
husk probably enclosed a cluster of at least two ears, each 
of which had its own husks which were only slightly 
longer than the ears. The situation is illustrated in the 
[ 14 ] 
