330 WEATHERWAX: THE EVOLUTION OF MAIZE 
‘it is based, we may still question the value of the facts as con- 
structive evidence leading to the conclusion. Is it safe to assume 
on this basis alone that an intermediate of this kind is necessarily 
a hybrid between the two extremes? And is a hybrid usually 
intermediate in character between its parents? But many of the 
supposed facts upon which this theory is based will not stand the 
light of a close examination; and the actual conditions are capable 
of a more simple and more direct explanation in another way. 
The theory depends upon some hypothetical pure variety of 
pod corn, which can be approached in reality only by inbreeding 
some one of the many available genetic complexes commonly 
known as pod corn. But inbreeding for purity implies intelligent 
selection among the pure lines reached or approached; and this 
places a burden of responsibility upon him who makes such selec- 
tion the basis of a theory of this kind. Collins has in mind, how- 
ever, some strain of pod corn the like of which he considers one of 
‘the ancestors of maize; and, in describing its simple, primitive 
nature, he makes some statements which are not in accord with 
the morphological facts that I have already set forth. The ex- 
treme type of pod corn is described (g9, p. 527) as having no ear, 
the absence of branches being a primitive characteristic. Dis- 
‘regarding the difficulty occasioned by the fact that these earless 
plants are incapable of self-propagation, we may cite the fact 
that they have buds in the axils of their leaves, indicating the 
suppression of ears. If a plant that never had any ears is primi- 
tive, one that has vestiges of ears that it has lost must be highly 
specialized. He says (p. 528): “In the branched forms of pod 
corn staminate flowers have never been observed on any of the 
branches.”” Contrary to this is the fact that sucker branches of 
pod corn often bear mixed or staminate inflorescences, these having 
often been mistaken, no doubt, for earless plants, especially when 
more than one plant is grown in a hill; and in several cases ears 
of pod corn have been found bearing well-developed stamens. 
Applying the specialization test to the ears, he says (p. 528): 
“In pod corn branches have never been observed in the axils 
of prophylla;” but I have often seen such branches, especially 
when the main ear had been injured and buds are to be found in the 
axils of the husks of all kinds of corn. From the foregoing cita- 
