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M LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
VoL. 12, No. 2 
THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE 
EAR OF MAIZE 
BY 
Paut C. MANGELSDORF 
Or ALL THE New World plants which excited the 
curiosity and wonder of the herbalists of the immediate 
post-Columbian period, none, perhaps, proved to be more 
intriguing than Indian corn or maize. The ears of this 
plant, and to a lesser extent the tassels, were quite baf- 
fling to the students of that period and have continued 
to perplex botanists for more than four centuries. No- 
where has the recognition of the peculiarities of the maize 
inflorescence been more vividly expressed than by Lyte 
in his New Herbal of 1619 (6)*. The page on which 
maize is described is reproduced as Plate VII of this 
paper. The description of the inflorescences is as follows: 
‘**This Corne is a marvellous strange plant, nothing re- 
sembling any other kind of grayne; forit bringeth forth 
his seede cleane contrarie from the place whereas the 
Floures grow, which is against the nature and kinds of 
all other plants, which bring forth their fruit there, 
whereas they have borne their Floure. ... at the highest 
of the stalkes, grow idle and barren eares, which bring 
forth nothing but the floures or blossomes. ... ”’ 
The wonderment of the herbalist of the sixteenth cen- 
* This description, in slightly different form, first appeared in an 
edition entitled A Nievve Herball in 1578. 
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