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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLVIH 



chromosomes. Furthermore, these factors are to be re- 

 garded as pattern factors. Though they must influence 

 the development of the pigment in order to produce a pat- 

 tern at all, they are now known to be distinct in inherit- 

 ance from the factors for pigment — a fact that I have 

 been able to show by use of a race of maize with a peculiar 

 brown pericarp in addition to races with red pericarp. 



Summaby 



A somatic variation in maize is shown to be inherited in 

 simple Mendelian fashion. The variation has to do with 

 the development of a dark red pigment (or in one stock 

 a brown pigment) in the pericarp of the grains, often 

 associated with the development of an apparently similar 

 pigment in the cob and husks. 



Plants in which this pigment has a variegated pattern 

 may show any amount of red pericarp, including wholly 

 self-red ears, large or small patches of self-red grains, 

 scattered self-red grains, grains with a single stripe of 

 red covering from perhaps nine tenths to one tenth of the 

 surface, grains with several prominent stripes and those 

 with a single minute streak, ears with most of the grains 

 prominently striped and ears that are non-colored except 

 for a single partly colored grain, and probably also plants 

 with wholly self-red and others with wholly colorless ears. 



It is shown that the amount of pigment developed in the 

 pericarp of variegated seeds bears a definite relation to 

 the development of color in the progeny of such seeds. 

 This relation is not such that seeds showing say nine 

 tenths, one half, or one tenth red will produce or even tend 

 to produce plants whose ears as a whole or whose indi- 

 vidual grains are, respectively, nine tenths, one half, or 

 one tenth red. Experimental results indicate rather that 

 the more color in the pericarp of the seeds planted the 

 more likely are they to produce plants with wholly self- 

 red ears, and, correspondingly, the less likely to yield 

 plants with variegated ears. 



Self -red ears thus produced are shown to behave in in- 



