Corn

Paul C. Mangelsdorf

Published by Harvard University Press 1974

Corn

Its Origin, Evolution and Improvement

Paul C. Mangelsdorf

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674421707

Overview
Contents

About this book

Corn is among the most familiar of grains; it is also one of the most mysterious. In this handsomely illustrated new book, Paul Mangelsdorf, perhaps the world's foremost expert on the corn plant, summarizes the work of a lifetime devoted to unraveling the enigma of corn.

This unique grain--it has no close counterpart elsewhere in the plant kingdom--exists only in association with man, and it survives only as a result of his intervention. Thus, the story of corn is in many ways a story about people. Combining the skills of scientist and storyteller, Professor Mangelsdorf in his search for the origin of corn takes the reader to archaeological digs in once-inhabited caves in Mexico and the United States Southwest, to the discovery of fossil pollen in drill cores taken deep below Mexico City, and to experimental fields where the great diversity of corn is revealed and where the plant is hybridized with its relatives teosinte and Tripsacum.

Drawing upon the evidence from botany, genetics, cytology, archaeology, and history, the author seeks to evaluate various hypotheses on the origin of corn. He concludes that the ancestor of cultivated corn was a wild form of pod corn; that corn may have been domesticated more than once in both Mexico and South America from different geographical races of wild corn; and that hybridizations between corn and its various relatives have resulted in explosive evolution leading to a diversity of varieties and forms unmatched in any other crop plant.

This is a book about corn, but it is a book for biologists, agronomists, anthropologists, and historians, and for the interested layman who would like to know something about the grain which, "transformed, as three fourths of it is, into meat, milk, eggs, and other animal products, is our basic food plant, as it was of the people who preceded us in this hemisphere."

Author information

Mangelsdorf Paul C. :

Paul C. Mangelsdorf was Fisher Professor of Natural History, Emeritus, at Harvard University and Lecturer in Botany at the University of North Carolina. He was a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Special Acknowledgment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xii
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Modern Corn Plant Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
2. Theories on the Origin of Maize Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
3. Teosinte, the Closest Relative of Maize Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
4. The Genetic Nature of Teosinte Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
5. Tripsacum, a More Distant Relative of Corn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
6. Corn’s Old World Relatives Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
7. Pod Corn, the Ancestral Form Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
8. The Nature of the Pod-Corn Locus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
9. Races of Maize Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
10. The Concept of Lineages Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
11 The Role of Hybridization in Corn’s Evolution Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
12. Mutations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
13. Genetic Drift and Selection Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
14. Archaeological Evidence of Corn’s Evolution Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
15. Prehistoric Wild Corn and Fossil Pollen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
16. Corn in Prehistoric Art Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
17. Corn’s Spread to the Old World Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
18. The Prehistoric and Modern Improvement of Maize Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
19. The Nature of Heterosis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
20. Modern Breeding Techniques Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Copyright year: 1974
Edition: Reprint 2014
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Front matter: 14
- Main content: 262
Illustrations
- Other: 114 halftones, 11 line illustrations, 3 maps, 18 tables
Keywords: TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Agriculture / General; SOCIAL SCIENCE / General; Corn.; General Botany.

eBook

Published: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 9780674421707

Hardcover

Published: February 5, 1974
ISBN: 9780674421691