The Inheritance of a Somatic Variation in Maize 21 
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 
sort of variegation, and still others to exceedingly light 
types of variegation. There can be no doubt that some of 
these different types of variegation are inherited, but the 
mode of inheritance in crosses has not been fully worked 
out. 
One other form of grain coloration that might be called 
an extremely dark type of variegation is to be noted. The 
grains are self-red throughout except for a nearly color- 
less crown formed by converging light stripes extending 
some way down the side of the grain opposite the germ, 
almost exactly the reverse of one of the types of dark 
variegation described above. Variegations of this sort 
behave in inheritance almost exactly like fully self -red 
grains, giving a large percentage of red-eared progeny. 
And these red ears are apparently always fully self -red, 
never showing the pattern of converging light lines seen 
in the parent seeds. Many such seeds have been included 
in the results recorded earlier in this paper where they 
were listed as "nearly self-red.' ' 
Intekpeetation of Bestjlts 
Any interpretation of the data presented here must take 
account of these facts: (1) that the more red there is in 
the pericarp the more frequently do red ears occur in the 
progeny, and (2) that such red ears behave just as if they 
were F 1 hybrids between red and variegated or red and 
white races. The development of red in the pericarp is 
evidently associated with and perhaps due to a modifica- 
