eties, therefore, have their affinities in the corn varieties 
of eastern South America. 
In so far as uniform greenness has any bearing upon 
the origin of maize, it points to Asia, not as a center of 
origin, but as a peripheral region where recessive genes 
have become ‘‘emancipated”’ through the process of 
‘genetic drift.’’ The counterpart of this situation occurs 
in rice which in the United States is represented largely 
by uncolored (green) varieties, but which has colored 
varieties in the Old World (Jones, 1980). In rice, as in 
maize, at least three loci are involved in anthocyanin 
coloration. 
2. Pendent tassels, like lack of anthocyanin color, al- 
though not common, are found in varieties from several 
countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, 
Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and 
Ecuador. The combination of pendent tassels and all- 
green plants occurs in only seven of these nine countries, 
not having been found in Costa Rica and Honduras. 
All-green plants with strongly pendent tassels are most 
common in Colombia where many other of the ‘‘unusual’”’ 
characters of the Assamese maize also occur, 
3. Straw-colored endosperm is not at all unusual 
among non-Tripsacoid varieties. Dull bluish-red aleurone 
is the product of superimposing blue aleurone on waxy 
endosperm and is a characteristic quite familiar to the 
majority of practicing maize geneticists. 
4. Small isodiametrical kernels are characteristic of 
many South American pop corns. Dr. Anderson kindly 
sent us kernels of several of the Assamese varieties. It 
was possible to match more than half of these in size, 
shape and color from a single collection of Colombian 
pop corns. 
5. Lack of vegetative vigor, manifested especially by 
the slowness of the tassel to reach the pollen-shedding 
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