results, but even if these eight characters were ignored, 
which would not be fully justified, 43 characters are left 
which support the hypothesis of the hybrid origin of teo- 
sinte as against one which apparently does not. This sin- 
gle exception—depth of alveolus—might be accounted 
for in any of several ways, the most plausible being gene 
interaction. 
Mangelsdorf and Reeves (26) stated that neither 7' 
dactyloides nor Andean corn was known to have the freely- 
branching tassel of teosinte and that, in this character, 
therefore, they would fall short of being satisfactory 
putative parents of teosinte. Since that time, however, 
Reeves (34) has pointed out that the tassels of some vari- 
eties of Andean corn are very profusely branched. Hence, 
T.. dactyloides is not ruled out because it lacks a freely- 
branching tassel. It should be emphasized that the list 
of characters studied (26, 35) includes those of the floral 
organs and inflorescences, which are conventionally rec- 
ognized in this alliance as generic characters. 
This intermediate position of teosinte is a peculiar con- 
dition which has not been explained, and which appar- 
ently cannot be explained, by divergent evolution of the 
three taxa from a common ancestor. If the relationship 
held true for only one or very few characters, it might 
be dismissed as being of no importance; since it holds 
for a large number of them, it strongly suggests that 
teosinte actually inherited its characters from corn and 
Tripsacum. 
EVIDENCE FROM FossiIL 
AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL MAIZE 
The evidence from both fossil and archaeological re- 
mains is best explained by the theory of a hybrid origin 
of teosinte, for it suggests that teosinte appeared on the 
scene more recently than either corn or ‘T'ripsacum and 
only after agriculture had become well established. 
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