THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLVIII 



heterozygous, variegated one and that it probably came 

 from a white seed crossed by a stray grain of pollen from 

 a variegated-eared plant, just as the occasional red ears 

 in the white variety were certainly produced by stray pol- 

 len from red-eared plants. 



More recently East and Hayes 5 reported like behavior 

 of a similarly variegated ear. An ear having on one side 

 solid red grains and on the other white and very light 

 variegated grains, similar to some of the "freak" ears 

 noted earlier in this paper furnished the material for the 

 test. The ear was produced from a white seed in a field 

 of otherwise pure white corn and was therefore doubtless 

 heterozygous for pericarp color and was probably pol- 

 linated in large part from plants without pericarp color, 

 so that 50 per cent, white-eared plants were to be expected 

 in its progeny. The white, the light variegated and the 

 solid red grains were planted separately. The white and 

 the variegated seeds alike produced light variegated and 

 white ears, 15 of the former and 15 of the latter. The red 

 seeds produced 22 white ears and 22 solid red ears. The 

 authors' interpretation of these results is that the white 

 seed which gave rise to the original colored ear had been 

 fertilized by pollen from a red-eared plant and that the 

 F t plant, "due to produce a red ear varied, somatically so 

 that one half of the ear was red and one half striped." 

 The authors further state : 



This variation was transmitted by seeds, but at the same time the 

 hybrid character of its seeds was unchanged as shown by their segrega- 

 tion into reds and whites in the next generation and the normal segre- 

 gation of the hybrid dark reds in a further generation. 



In the light of nry own observations, it is equally pos- 

 sible and seems more likely that the white seed from which 

 the original red-and-variegated ear came was the result 

 of pollination from a plant with variegated ears, and that 

 the somatic variation was from variegated grains to solid 

 red grains rather than from red to variegated. But the 

 important fact is that a somatic variation was later in- 

 herited in a strictly Mendelian way. 



s East, E. M., and Hayes, H. K., Bui. Conn. Agr. Expt. Sta., 167: 106-107. 

 1911. 



