THE STORY OF THE MAIZE PLANT' 



A Review 



HP 



iHE story of the maize plant is 

 I a comprehensive title and the 

 subject is encompassed in a 

 small volume of 247 pages, including- a 

 bibliography and index. The motive 

 which actuated the compilation of ma- 

 terial for this story is based, according 

 to the preface, "on numerous inquiries 

 for specific information about the 

 maize plant received by the author in 

 the course of four or five years." 

 Being a morphologist it is not sur- 

 prising that the inquiries he received 

 should relate largely to morphological 

 features and this doubtless accounts 

 for the emphasis placed on morphol- 

 ogy in the present volume. The gen- 

 eticists almost certainly will feel that 

 their investigational field has been 

 given scant treatment, but this feeling 

 may be due somewhat to prejudice and 

 after all the brevity with which gen- 

 etics is treated may prove a blessing. 



There can be no question as to the 

 intensely interesting character of the 

 morphological problems found in maize 

 and the contributions on these, which 

 largely are a reassembling of the au- 

 thor's previous works, are welcome 

 and, combined in one volume, may be 

 said to fill a long-felt need. 



The inclusion of material other than 

 morphology was doubtless at the in- 

 sistence of the editorial committee 

 prompted perhaps by the desire for an 

 appealing general title and the result, 

 as might have been anticipated, has 

 been to dilute a good morphological 

 treatise with irrelevant and often 

 archaic ideas. The chapters on tillage 

 will scarcely meet the approval of the 

 agronomists and the incongruity of 

 presenting descriptions of corn plant- 

 ers and harvesters between the detailed 

 histological accounts of the root sys- 



tem and floral organs will be patent to 

 all. One misses the familiar drawings 

 of the farm implements discussed and 

 it is to be hoped that this oversight 

 will be corrected in later editions. 



A comprehensive bibliography is ap- 

 pended which may be as good as those 

 in many similar publications, but a 

 hasty perusal of the titles affords little 

 clue as to what influenced the choice 

 of references. Throughout the text it 

 seems to have been largely a matter of 

 chance whether or not the sources of 

 information were cited, though an ex- 

 ception has been made with the his- 

 torical references wdiere it was obvious 

 that the author could not have made 

 the original contributions. Perhaps 

 the most conspicuous omission is the 

 failure to refer to the work of Hayes 

 and East in the extended discussion of 

 the floury-corneuos crosses. 



The arrangement, which should not 

 be charged to the author alone, being 

 also a responsibility of the editors, 

 seems capable of improvement and 

 much reference back and forth 

 throughout the text as well as some 

 needless repetition seems avoidable. 



The author is to be congratulated 

 on having receded somewhat from the 

 dogmatic utterances of his technical 

 papers — a hopeful sign that increasing 

 experience will bring about true scien- 

 tific openmindedness. It is interesting 

 to note, however, that he still feels 

 that observations based on other than 

 embryological characters are super- 

 ficial and promise only a "precarious 

 base for philosojihic consideration." 



There are three minor departures 

 from accepted nomenclature. Thus 

 the author throughout capitalizes the 

 specific name of Zea (mays), places an 

 accent on the final "e" in teosinte and 



'■ Weatherwax, Paul. The Story of the Maize Plant. University of Chicago Science 

 Series. 247 pages. 174 figures. 2 colored plates. University of Chicago Press, March, 1923. 



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