BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
VOL. 26, No.7 
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, SEPTEMBER 30, 1978 
FOSSIL POLLEN AND THE 
ORIGIN OF CORN 
ANCIENT POLLEN FROM DEEP CORES IN MEXICO SHOWS 
THE ANCESTOR OF CORN TO BE CORN AND NOT ITS 
RELATIVE, TEOSINTE. 
PAUL C. MANGELSDORF,* ELSO S. BARGHOORN,** 
There are currently two main schools of thought on the 
question of corn’s origin: one, a 19th century concept, consid- 
ers teosinte, corn’s closest relative, to be its ancestor; the 
other, a more recent One, maintains that the ancestor of culti- 
vated corn was a wild corn, now probably extinct. 
The teosinte theorists argue that since the majority of culti- 
vated species have extant wild ancestral forms, corn must also 
have its wild counterpart and does so in teosinte (/), a species 
that is widely distributed in parts of Mexico and Central 
America and which has, for more than a century, been recog- 
nized as corn’s closest relative (2). This school also relies 
strongly on certain parts of the cytogenetic evidence (3), and 
this particular evidence is indeed impressive. Corn and teo- 
sinte have the same chromosome number, hybridize freely, the 
hybrids are usually highly fertile, the pairing of the parental 
chromosomes in the hybrids is virtually complete and — 
perhaps most important — crossing over between them is 
*Fisher Professor of Natural History Emeritus, Harvard University, and Lecturer in 
Botany, University of North Carolina.** Fisher Professor of Natural History, Harvard 
University.*** Honorary Research Fellow, Botanical Museum, Harvard University. 
$25.00 a year, net, postpaid. Orders should be directed to Secretary of Publications at the above 
address. Second-Class Postage Paid at Boston, Massachusetts. 
