Tripsacum of homozygous pod corn in bearing staminate 
spikelets above and pistillate spikelets below on the 
branches of the tassel is especially impressive. 
Finally, it is possible, in spite of differences in chromo- 
some number, to hybridize maize and ‘Tripsacum and to 
demonstrate interchange between their chromosomes. 
There is abundant circumstantial evidence that such hy- 
bridization has occurred in the past and that it has been 
an important factor in the evolution of maize under 
domestication. 
The closeness of relationship between maize and its 
American relatives seems to us to be far more important 
than the fact that maize has a larger number of relatives 
in Asia than in America. 
In short, there is nothing in the botanical evidence of 
Stonor and Anderson in the three categories considered 
to invalidate the widely-held and well-supported opinion 
that maize is an American plant and there is nothing 
which indicates to us that maize was taken across the 
Pacific to Asia before 1492. 
The Ethnographic Evidence 
The ethnographic evidence of Stonor and Anderson, 
like the botanical evidence, comprises several distinct 
categories: (a) evidence concerned with legends and tra- 
ditions; (b) names applied to maize ; (c) the uses to which 
maize is put; (d) the role of maize in the economy of 
the people. 
Stonor in his part of the joint paper gives unwarranted 
credence, we think, to statements by natives that maize 
is a very old crop in the region studied. For example: 
‘The Angamis I have talked to simply state that they 
have grown maize from time immemorial.”’ ‘“The Abor 
tribes simply state that they have always had maize 
among their crops.”’ How simplified ethnology would 
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