BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
Camprip@r, Massacuusetts, Fesruary 20, 1959 VoL. 18, No. 
THE ORIGIN OF CORN 
I. Pop Corn, rHE ANCESTRAL ForM 
BY 
Paut C. MANGELSDORF AND Rosert G. REEVEs'’ 
Ir 1s now one hundred years since the first edition of 
Darwin’s epoch-making book ‘‘On the Origin of Spe- 
cies’” appeared in the London bookstalls. It would be 
difficult to overestimate the immediate impact of this 
work, or its continuing influence throughout the ensuing 
century, not only upon all branches of biology but also 
upon the other sciences and indeed upon virtually all 
fields of human thought. It has been said with some de- 
gree of truth that ‘‘Next to the Bible no work has been 
quite as influential, in virtually every aspect of human 
thought, as the ‘Origin of Species.’ *’ 
To the student of cultivated plants, the book was — 
and is—of special interest because Darwin’s conclusions, 
arguments and theories were founded, to a large extent, 
on his monumental studies of domestic animals and cul- 
tivated plants. he first chapter in the book is devoted 
to this subject, and Darwin subsequently wrote a two- 
volume treatise on the variation of animals and plants 
under domestication. He believed that the key to the 
problems of modification and adaptation was to be found 
in the study of variation of organisms under domestica- 
' Professor, Departments of Agronomy and Genetics, Texas Agri- 
cultural Experiment Station. 
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