CHERAN: a sierra TARASCAN village — BEALS 



219 



the streets with the musicians to the house of 

 the ficSiua, who serves nakatamales, bumielos, 

 and 6apata, the men and women of the cabildo 

 eating first. During the night there is much 

 dancing of jarabes, first women dancing with 



women and later men dancing with women. 

 The latter enter into contests with others. 

 Pastores are also sung all night, verses taken 

 from printed pamphlets from Mexico. This is 

 continued every night until Candelaria. 



APPENDIX 3 



REPORT ON MAIZE FROM CHERAN 



By Edgar Anderson 



Missouri Botanical Garden and Washington University, St. Louis 



Fifty-five ears of maize were received from 

 Dr. Ralph L. Beals, in lots numbered from 

 1 to 43, there being two ears each of most of 

 the numbers above 30. The ears were photo- 

 graphed, grain samples were taken, and the 

 ears returned to Dr. Beals. In the summer of 

 1942, 10 plants from each lot were grown at the 

 Blandy Experimental Farm, of the University 

 of Virginia,^^ Boyce, Va. Although the plant- 

 ing as a whole was badly infested with smut, 

 at least one good tassel specimen was obtained 

 from each lot and herbarium specimens were 

 also made of leaves and seedlings. Notes on 

 plant color, pubescence, etc., were taken in the 

 field, and the internode pattern of one plant of 

 each lot was recorded. Five plants from the 

 entire lot were investigated in detail, cytologi- 

 cally, and the knob number and knob positions 

 of their chromosomes were determined. 



As a whole, the corn belongs to the race 

 recently termed "Mexican Pyramidal" by 

 Anderson and Cutler (1942). Many of the 

 ears and the plants grown from them are indis- 

 tinguishable (for all practical purposes) from 

 collections made in the vicinity of Mexico City. 

 However, there are certain average difi'erences 

 which seem to be significant, and a few of the 

 numbers are unlike anything we have yet 

 examined from Mexico, D. F. Plants are 

 medium to tall, mostly with conspicuous sun 

 red (occasionally purple) plant color. Tillers 

 are few or absent. The leaves are broad but 

 break easily in the wind, giving the collection 

 a very bedraggled appearance, which is height- 

 ened by the susceptibility to smut. The tas- 



^^ For laboratory space and many other courtesies, we are 

 indebted to the Director. Dr. O. E. White. 



sels are large and coarse but there are few 

 tassel branches. The ears are short, though 

 the husks are often very long. The ear 

 branches vary greatly in length, the most 

 extreme being 3 or 4 feet long, with numerous 

 secondary ears. This is partly due to culture 

 in a region of different day length (i. e., Virginia 

 vs. Mexico). The ears are prevailingly broad 

 at the base, tapering sharply and evenly. The 

 kernels are mostly hard and flinty but are 

 nearly all more or less dented. There is great 

 variation in kernel size and shape, not only 

 from plant to plant but also on each ear, since, 

 owing to the position of the husks, the grains 

 at the tip of the ear are under strong compres- 

 sion, whereas those at the base have plenty of 

 room. It is not unusual to see an ear with the 

 basal kernels deeply dented but with no per- 

 ceptible denting in any of the kernels at the tip. 



Two main types were well represented in the 

 collections (table 18). There were the so-called 

 "Black" maize from Cheran (Nos. 31-37) 

 and from Nahuatzen (Nos. 38-43) and 

 "Tulukenio" (Nos. 1-26), a mountain type 

 grown only above 8,500 feet (pi. 8). A third 

 type, "Trimasion," is grown on the plain below 

 8,500 feet. It is said to be later maturing, 

 larger-eared, and larger-grained. This was 

 apparently confirmed by our collections, but 

 since there were only two numbers (29 and 30) 

 no averages have been prepared. 



The collections of Black maize stood out 

 sharply both in the field and in the collection of 

 ears. The latter were around 15 cm. in length, 

 nearly all of them with dark (blue or purple) 

 kernels which were deeply to lightly dented and 

 were rounded (i. e., not pointed). Purple cob 



