Xo. 566] INHERITANCE IN EARS OF MAIZE 101 



herited. There are sometimes found variegated ears 

 with a large patch of self-red cob but with little or no cor- 

 responding change in the color of the overlying grains. 

 I have as yet no evidence that this somatic variation in 

 cob color is inherited through the seeds of the self-red 

 part of the cob. Such seeds apparently always produce 

 ears with variegated grains and variegated cobs, just as 

 do other seeds of the same parent ear. Of course varie- 

 gated seeds from a self-red patch of cob occasionally give 

 rise to a self-red ear, as discussed in detail in this paper, 

 and such red ears always have self -red cobs, but this is 

 also true of all self-red ears, whether or not they are pro- 

 duced by red or by variegated seeds and without respect 

 to whether the part of the cob underlying these seeds is 

 self-red, finely variegated, or entirely white. 



Another form of somatic variation seen in ears of maize 

 is the occurrence of patches of considerable size, the 

 grains of which, though variegated, are much darker in 

 color than the grains of the rest of the ear. Such patches 

 of grains are often quite as strikingly distinct in appear- 

 ance as patches of self -red grains, and are apparently 

 even more likely to correspond exactly in outline with an 

 underlying patch of self-red cob than are patches of self- 

 red grains. Moreover, such dark, variegated grains often 

 present a rather definite color pattern. The crowns are 

 often made to appear almost solid red by the widening 

 and convergence at the crown of narrow red stripes ex- 

 tending down toward the base of the grain particularly on 

 the side opposite the germ. Another type of dark, varie- 

 gated grains differs from the lighter, variegated grains 

 of the same ear principally in the greater development of 

 the somewhat washed-out red apparently underlying the 

 dark red stripes of the variegation pattern proper. I 

 have grown numerous progenies from dark and light 

 variegated grains of the same ears, but as yet have no 

 evidence that such somatic variations are inherited. Not- 

 withstanding this, I have strains of maize breeding true 

 to a very dark type of variegation, others to a medium 



