578 
Journal of Agricultural Research vo1.xxvilno. s 
In teosinte there is no such indication of brachysm, all branches 
having elongated intemodes. The first indication of the contamination 
of teosinte with maize is in the direction of brachysm, as instanced by a 
shortening of the pistillate rachis, resulting in displacing the alignment 
of the seeds and a shortening also of the lateral vegetative branches. 
The absence in teosinte of the hereditary factors that control the 
shortening of the intemodes and their homologues in the lateral inflor¬ 
escences of maize may be responsible for the failure of simple segregation 
in the F 2 . 
CHARACTERS MEASURED 
Several characters not recorded in the crinkly and ramose teosinte 
hybrids were studied in the brachytic hybrid, while other characters 
used in the former hybrids were not considered. The added characters 
are: (a) Diameter of stalk; ( b ) average length of intemodes on best in¬ 
florescence; (c) rank of pistillate inflorescence. 
Diameter or stalk. —This measurement is taken at the smallest 
place of the largest intdmode and is recorded in millimeters. In teosinte 
the average diameter of the stalk is about 2 cm., while in brachytic 
maize it averages about 4 cm. 
Average length of internodes on best inflorescence. —This 
measurement is designed to determine whether the brachytic nature of 
suckers is retained on the lateral branches borne above the ground. 
The length of the branch in centimeters is divided by the number of 
intemodes. The intemodes of teosinte branches usually exceed 10 cm. 
in length, and in brachytic maize seldom exceed 1 cm. 
inheritance of measured characters 
An examination of the frequency distribution shows that height of 
plant is the only characteristic having a bimodal distribution which can 
be attributed to the segregation of the brachytic character. Other bi¬ 
modal characters are found, but these are not the result of the segregation 
of brachysm. Unlike the case of the crinkly and ramose hybrids, and 
similar to that of the Tom Thumb hybrid, no proterogynous plants were 
obtained in the F 2 . The mean number of days from pollen to silk was 
5.52 ±0.13, which is very much less than the 18.3 ±0.59 observed in the 
Tom Thumb hybrid. 
Rank of pistillate inflorescence. —The best pistillate spike from 
each plant was arranged in a series grading from teosinte to maize. This 
series was continuous, but for facility in handling the data an effort was 
made to combine the inflorescences into a few grades. Eight grades 
were established, grade one including only those spikes whidi were in¬ 
distinguishable from pure teosinte, while grade eight embraced the most 
maizelike inflorescences. There were only four spikes of grade eight, 
and these resembled poorly developed maize ears. In the intermediate 
groups the inflorescences were classed as to the number of rows of 
spikelets, the amount of articulation of the rachis, etc. A fairly normal 
frequency distribution was obtained for these eight grades, which may be 
considered as indicating that this grouping of the inflorescences was a 
natural one. In all other maize-teosinte hybrids in which the Florida 
strain of teosinte has been used, the seeds of the most teosintelike 
inflorescences recovered in the F 2 resembled the triangular seeds of the 
