340. WEATHERWAX: THE EVOLUTION OF MAIZE 
are insignificant as compared with those preceding the advent 
of the white man. The varieties of corn which Columbus first saw 
in the West Indies in the fifteenth century were probably in no 
essential way different from those now grown on many Indian 
reservations (Fic. 1); and the highest attainment of corn breeding, 
as represented by the dent varieties of the Mississippi valley 
today (Fics. 7, 36), is merely one of a combination of these 
varieties, with a few more organs dropped, a little more concen- 
trated fructification, and a little greater vegetative vigor. 
SUMMARY 
Vestigial organs being considered, Zea, Euchlaena, and Trip- 
sacum are identical in structural plan. The present aspect of 
each is due to the suppression of some parts which were present 
in a primitive ancestor having perfect flowers borne in one type 
of inflorescence. 
The ear of maize is the homologue of the central spike of the 
tassel. There is no morphological evidence to support the view 
that either of these organs originated in the fusion of more simple 
parts; and there is in no one of the genera here considered any 
organ the like of which could have united to form either the ear 
or the central spike of the tassel. 
The prevailing theory that maize is a species of hybrid origin 
has little to suggest it when maize and its near relatives are 
thoroughly understood, and it is not in harmony with the most 
significant facts of morphology. It seems much more probable 
that Zea, Euchlaena, and Tripsacum have descended independently 
from a common ancestral form now extinct. 
INDIANA UNIVERSITY. 
REFERENCES 
1. Bailey, L. H. A new maize and its behavior under cultivation. 
Cornell Agr. Exp. Sta. Bull. 49: 332-338. 1892. 
2. Bailey, L. H., & Gilbert, A. W. Plant Breeding. New York. 
1916. 
3. Blaringhem, L. Anomalies héréditaires provoquées par des trau- 
matismes. Compt. Rend. 140: 378-380. 1905. 
Production d’une espéce élémentaire nouvelle de mais par 
traumatismes. Compt. Rend. 143: 245-247. 1906. 
4. 
