ulation of some 100,000 selfed ears. It is of interest to 
note that in the case of one of these mutations Bear 
found one ear pure for waxy in the line in which waxy 
endosperm was first noticed. This pure waxy ear was 
the product of Mendelian segregation and not of human 
selection. 
In Asia, waxy maize is widespread. Collins (1909, 1920) 
has reported its occurrence in China, Burma and the 
Philippines. Kuleshov (1928) states that it is spread from 
5° to 45° north latitude in Asia. 
Is there any significance in the fact that a gene which 
is comparatively rare in American maize should be wide- 
spread in Asia’ Certainly there is none from the stand- 
point of the time required for waxy varieties to become 
established. It is not at all uncommon for recessive genes 
which are rare at the center of a plant’s origin to become 
common somewhere at the periphery of its spread. This 
is anatural consequence of the process already mentioned, 
‘‘oenetic drift,’ in which recessives with a low frequency 
may rapidly attain a high frequency as the result of 
sampling and without the intervention of either natural 
or artificial selection. So far as waxy endosperm has any 
bearing upon the origin of maize, it, like the all-green 
plants discussed above, points to Asia as a peripheral 
region rather than as a center of origin. 
There is, however, undoubtedly other significance in 
the fact that waxy maize occurs so commonly in a part 
of the world which also possesses waxy varieties of rice, 
sorghum and millet. The obvious explanation is that the 
people of Asia, being familiar with waxy (glutinous) 
varieties of other cereals and accustomed to using them 
for special purposes, recognized the waxy character in 
maize, when that cereal was introduced, and purposely 
isolated varieties pure for the waxy condition’. Because 
* Burkill (1935) questions, however, whether waxy maize was ever 
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