The Maize and Teosinte Male Inflorescence: A Numerical Taxonomic Study

he genus Zea consists of the peripe ege maize, and its wild and weedy relatives, the kn native to Mexi e Honduras.This study investigates the comparative ogy of the male inflorescence (tassel) from a large sample of teosinte populations and selected maize races.The reason for focusing on the tassel is simply that as an inedible structure it escaped the direct effects of those forces of hu uman selection specifically aimed at its edible female counterpart, ore appropri bioc eran.l, and gene measurements were subjected to canonical variate analysis, : measured on al multivariate statistical ape Consideration of th ic dat Luxurian m ys ssp.mays; (4b) Zea mays ssp.mexicana contains vars.paresis and huehuetenangensis VG fthe following taxa: I section tes-EK.Pa diploperennis (2) Zea perennis, 1 Zea luxurians; II section Zea-(4a) Z ; (4c) Z a mays ssp.parviglumis.The latter drethough morphologically similar, differ subnce by some genetic measures.Fach t taxon is described € illustrated with emphasis on the tassel and spikelet.between maize and Zea diploperennis, a fact which casts doubt t on clic recent hypothesis € these annuals represent the hybrid offspring of Zea diploperennis and a "hypothetical wild ma ees thermor is -direct ancestor of maize: either Zea mays ssp.parviglumis or ssp.mexicana gave rise to wise ma The genus Zea consists of a small group of annual and perennial grasses including the economically important cultigen, maize (Zea mays ssp.mays), and its wild relatives, the teosintes, which are native to Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.There are four species included under the popular name teosinte according to the latest taxonomic treatment (Iltis & Doebley, 1980 Thus, Zea includes, in addition to the cultigen listed above, the following taxa: (1a) Zea mays ssp.mexicana from central and northern Mexico, including races Chalco, Central Plateau, and obogame of Wilkes (1967); (1b) Z. mays ssp.parviglumis var.parviglumis from southwestern Mexico (= race Balsas of Wilkes); (1c) Z. mays ssp.parviglumis var.huehuetenangensis from western Guatemala (= race Huehuetenango of r many seminal suggestions, critical reading of this manuscript, and introducing me to theo ial thanks go to Hugh H. Iltis.For guiding me thro ough the inscrutable world of statistics and.diens helpful suggestions on the methodology, I express my gratitude to Robert i uy sed arranging for my teosinte samples to be iscon