MORPHOLOGY, GENETICS AND BREEDING 61 



Africa were varietally distinct and more primitive than those peanuts of 

 Peru which had found their way into Mexico in pre-Columbian times, 

 and later travelled from Peru to the islands of the Pacific, East Asia, and 

 as far as Madagascar. The latter forms reached Spain via France from 

 Mexico. The varietal terms "African" and "Asian" arose from this post- 

 Columbian distribution of cultivated peanut forms. There can be little 

 question but that the peanut known in the United States as "Valencia" is 

 the Peruvian-Mexican- Asian-Spanish (Archbishop of Valence) form. 



ChevaHer (16) noted that the upright and prostrate habits of peanuts 

 were insufficient grounds for establishing subspecies. 



Some 40 varieties were listed by Hayes (30) who gave their countries 

 of origin. His classification divided A. hypogaea into runner and bunch 

 varieties. Four groups of varieties were separated under his bunch group 

 on the basis of such characters as corolla color, seedrcoat color, hairiness, 

 etc. Six runner groups were similarly separated on the basis of such 

 superficial characters. 



John and Seshadri (40) went so far as to give a Latin description of 

 a variety "gigantea" which they had discovered among the segregating 

 progeny following a cross. 



Hull (36) stated that the peanuts which he used in a genetic study 

 fell into three groups, runner, Spanish and Valencia. 



Clos (17) used the following ten characteristics in classifying the 

 types of peanuts grown in Argentina: Carriage of the plants, color of 

 the seed coats, number of seeds per fruit, size of fruits, constriction of the 

 fruits, elevation of fruit venation, color of the stalk, pubescence of the 

 stalk, weight of the seeds, and venation of the seeds. Like Hayes, Clos 

 divided cultivated peanuts into two main groups, upright and prostrate. 

 Then by means of the characters listed above he isolated eleven upright 

 types and four prostrate types known in Argentina. 



More recently Boufifil (13) has stated that the only characters which 

 are of any value in varietal classification are (1) the carriage of the 

 plant, and (2) the presence or absence of a rest period in the seeds. He 

 further states that characters ordinarily utilized in the classification of 

 plants are of no value in separating varieties of peanuts. He disagrees 

 with Chevalier (16) and separates A. hypogaea into two subspecies on 

 the basis of whether the plans are prostrate or upright. His classification 

 follows : 



A. Plants prostrate 



A. hypogaea subsp. africana 



(a) Early maturity, immediate germination : var. praecox 



(b) Late maturity, delayed germination : var. tarda 



