A DWARF MUTANT IN MAIZE 



The dwarf mutation illustrated above appeared in a plot of "Stowell's Evergreen" sweet corn 

 grown at the Connecticut experiment station, New Haven, in 1908, and is described in that 

 statifjn's bulletin No. 167, p. 130. "It was very short (18 inches) and liad short leaves of the 

 normal breadth. The joints were very close together, and the whole appearance of the plant 

 suggested a normal plant that had been pushed together like a tclescoi)e." Its height is shown 

 by contrast with a single ordinary ear from a normal strain of this same variety, at the right. 

 An attempt to self-fertilize the dwarf failed, so it was cross-pollinated from normal Stowell's 

 Evergreen, and produced one fairly good ear, which was i)lanted. One dwarf like tlie maternal 

 parent appeareil out of M plants. From a Mendelian vicw])()int it might have Ik-cu expected 

 that there would l)e no dwarfs in this generation, but that the normal condition would be dominant. 

 The one dwarf was completely sterile, but a selfed normal plant from the same lot gave two dwarfs 

 out f)f 76 plants in 1910. E. Si. East writes, " I supposj that it is an exami)le of variable dominance 

 such as is often found when one crosses an abnormality with a somewhat mixed ])opulation. As 

 every race of corn is more or less mixed, I think it not unlikely that many of thcsi,' abnormalities 

 should vary all the way from the dominant to the recessive condition in the first hyl)rid generation 

 of the cross. It is not a peculiar n-sult, but is apt to confuse a person in an ojjcn ixillinalcd crop 

 like corn." (Frontispiece.) 



