Corn
fl;900 bce–1997;an — Indian Corn
Category: Flora — Subcategory: Dehydrated — Condition: Fair to poor — Origin: North Eastern Woodlands — Age: unknown
[“Indian”] Corn, Z. mays
One female inflorescence with up to 1,000 ovules and styles [silks] or potential kernels. Illustrating the genetic ancestor, now extinct for common domesticated corn. Mangelsdorf’s “tripartite theory” on the sexual synthesis, or evolutionary immutability, of North American varieties, is implied.
“As a corn breeder [Mangelsdorf] had experimented with a third kindred grass, Tripsacum, and with his Texas colleague Robert Reeves had in 1939 formulated a “tripartite theory” to prove that “the ancestor of cultivated corn was corn.” (Fussell, p. 79)
He speculated that there must once have been a wild corn, now extinct, and that a hybrid of this wild pod popcorn mated with Tripsacum to become the parents of teosinte. He concluded that a gene mix of these three related grasses evolved into our modern races of corn.
References
- Betty Fussell, The Story of Corn. New York City, 1992.
- P.C. Mangelsdorf, Corn: Its Origin, Evolution, and Improvement. Cambridge, 1974.
- _____, and R. G. Reeves, "The Origin of Indian Corn and Its Relatives." Bulletin. 574. Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, 1939.
The opposing view is presented in:
- H. H. Iltis, “From Teosinte to Maize: The Catastrophic Sexual Transmutation.” Science. no. 4626;222. 25 Nov., 1983
