branches are brittle when mature, breaking apart easily 
when disturbed by the wind or by birds, thus providing 
a mechanism for the dispersal of the seeds. When ears 
occur, they are borne at high positions on the stalk. In 
these positions, the ears are small, sometimes branched, 
bear both male and female flowers, and are enclosed by 
only a few husks which flare open at maturity, allowing 
the fragile ear to disperse its glume-covered seeds. Plants 
of this reconstructed ancestral form have many of the 
characteristics of a good wild grass, and they show a strik- 
ing similarity in several of their botanical characteristics 
to Tripsacum, a wild relative of maize. As mentioned 
above, this reconstructed form, with some additional 
modifications brought about by selection, might survive 
in nature in a suitable environment. 
This true-breeding pod corn shows a resemblance in 
its principal botanical characteristics to Weatherwax’s 
hypothetical ancestor of the American Maydeae which 
he described as follows (29): 
We picture the ancestral form as a plant with the habit of teosinte 
or of some of the tropical species of T'ripsacum, with paniculate inflo- 
rescence terminating the main culm and the branches. Each inflores- 
cence had pairs of staminate spikelets in the terminal portion and 
pairs of pistillate spikelets toward the base of each of its branches. 
The staminate spikelet was two-flowered, but the pistillate had only 
one functional flower and a rudiment of another. The lower glume 
of the pistillate spikelet and the adjacent rachis segment had probably 
not yet developed into a hard shell. 
Except that it is an annual and often has both male 
and female spikelets in both inflorescences, the recon- 
structed form is similar to the hypothetical wild maize 
with which domestication began, described by Weather- 
wax as follows (29): 
It is conceivable, however, that there came a time when, by natural 
processes, it had taken on an appearance not very different from that 
of some relatively undeveloped varieties cultivated today. That is, it 
had terminal staminate panicles on a few main culms and pistillate 
[ 850 | 
