distinct types: the first, characterized by conspicuous 
prop roots, was probably a tropical form introduced into 
Europe from the Caribbean area soon after 1492; the 
second, which lacks prop roots but sometimes has nu- 
merous tillers, is similar to the Northern Flints of east- 
ern North America and appears to have been well known 
in Kurope within 50 years after America’s discovery. He 
(as well as Anderson in the preface to Finan’s work) 
raised the question whether it could have been intro- 
duced into Europe by the Norsemen before 1492. Finan 
also speculated on the reason for the common. belief 
among the herbalists that corn came to Europe from the 
Orient, 
Suto and Yoshida have gone even further than this in 
their unqualified assertion that the Aegean type, from 
which they believed the European maize to be derived 
and which was first described by Anderson and Brown 
(3), was, like the Persian, diffused throughout the Old 
World before 1492. 
Corn’s Rapip SPREAD AFTER 1492 
If all of these various assertions about pre-Columbian 
maize inthe Old World were true, maize must have been 
about as widely distributed there as it was in America. 
Why then did it not leave a single tangible record of any 
kind of its presence? Why did corn cause such wonder- 
ment to sixteenth century students of plants if it had 
already been known for several centuries or more? 
Underlying all of the speculations on pre-Columbian 
maize in Asia, Africa, or Europe is one common assump- 
tion: that corn could not have spread rapidly enough 
after 1492 to reach all of the places where it was known 
a generation later. This is not only a highly unreliable 
premise but also, we think, a presumptuous one for it 
places arbitrary limits, not justified either by history or 
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