INHERITANCE OF WAXY ENDOSPERM IN MAIZE. 27 
DIFFERENCES IN RECIPROCALS. 
It would appear from differences in the behavior of reciprocals in 
the progeny of Dh 284 and also in the progeny of crosses between 
the two hybrids that in the descendants of certain ears there is a 
significant deficiency of male gametes bearing the waxy character. 
This deficiency may be due to a differential death rate, a lack of 
vigor resulting in a slower growth of the pollen tube, or an unequal 
formation of gametes bearing waxy endosperm. 
The difference observed is not of sufficient magnitude to account 
for the deficiency of waxy seeds in the perjugate generation of 
waxy X horny hybrids. There is evidence to show that the de- 
ficiency of waxy seeds observed in the perjugate generation of 
waxy X horny hybrids is not entirely due to this deficiency of 
effective male gametes bearing the waxy character. There were 
14 pairs of reciprocal crosses between identical plants. One 
parent of these 28 ears was homozygous for waxy, the other parent 
was homozygous for horny endosperm. 
Of the 14 ears shown in Table XIII, 10 indicate a difference be- 
tween the male and female gametes in the percentage of gametes 
bearing the waxy character. In 9 of these 10 pairs the proportion 
of male gametes bearing the waxy character was below the expected 
percentage and the proportion of female gametes was above the 
expected, indicating that the difference between the male and female 
gametes was not only due to a deficiency of male gametes bearing 
waxy endosperm but also to an excess of female gametes bearing 
waxy endosperm. 
The total for the 14 pairs of reciprocals shows a difference of 2.7 
per cent between the male and female gametes in the number of 
gametes bearing the waxy character. A difference of this magnitude 
would be expected to occur as the result of chance but once in over 300 
times. Ten of the 14 pairs show the percentage of male gametes 
bearing the waxy character to be lower than the percentage of female 
gametes bearing this character. | 
While the totals show dependable differences, there is but one case 
where the individual reciprocals differ by a significant amount. Nos. 
1902 and 1917 differ by 9.72.0, which is 4.86 times the probable error. 
The relations of the ears of this last pair are shown in figure 3. The 
difference in this case is due to both the male and female gametes. 
There is a deficiency of 4.4 per cent in the proportion of male gametes 
with waxy endosperm, while there is an excess of 5.53 per cent of 
female gametes bearing waxy endosperm. 
Self-pollinating such an ear would be expected to result in an ear 
with 25.2 per cent waxy. Ear No. 1918, which is the result of self- 
pollinating the above heterozygous horny plant, had 27.0 per cent 
