waxy endosperm is arecessive, this task would have been 
simple and well within the abilities of even the most 
primitive hill peoples. Indeed, the practice of growing 
maize as single plants among other cereals, reported by 
Stonor and Anderson, would promote self-pollination, 
and in any stock in which the waxy gene occurred would 
inevitably lead in a very short time to the establishment 
of pure waxy varieties whose special properties people 
accustomed to the waxy character in other cereals could 
hardly fail to recognize. Man’s part in the establishment 
of waxy varieties of maize in Asia need have been no 
greater than a recognition of this type and a willingness 
to preserve it once it was presented to him as the product 
of random sampling. 
But much more important than the individual charac- 
ters of the Assamese maize is the fact that these characters 
occur as a “‘complex’’ in Asia: a complex which is said 
to be rare in South America and ‘‘nothing like it’’ to be 
known in Mexico, Guatemala or other parts of Central 
America. How accurate is this statement and how valid 
the conclusions regarding the uniqueness of Assamese 
maize / 
The complex of characters in its entirety has not been 
reported from Mexico and Central America, but does 
(if we exclude waxy endosperm as an integral part of the 
complex) occur in South America. The authors them- 
selves mention two varieties from Chile, one from Argen- 
tina, and several from Bolivia which have a number of 
features in common with the Assamese maize, and they 
quote Brieger as noting these characteristics in other 
parts of South America. The most unusual of the As- 
samese varieties, called Late Sidewise, which is said to look 
selected for its waxiness and suggests that it was preserved only be- 
cause of the peculiar suitability of its sheaths for cheroots. This prob- 
lem merits further study. 
[ 272 | 
