Inheritance of Corn Grass a Macromutation in Maize, and Its Possible Significance as an Ancestral Type

Abstract

Corn grass is a monogenic dominant type of maize that arose by a single macromutation. It has narrow leaves, many tillers and under field conditions hardly ever sheds pollen. It can be propagated asexually and seed is distributed over the plant in many small ears containing but a few seeds each. Several of these characters are those which might be expected in an ancestor of maize. The possibility that a Corn grass type of plant was the ancestor of maize is discussed.