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 Hence Sturtevant offers the names Zea tunicata for the husk-kernel forms, Zea everta for the popcorn, Zea indurata for the flint corns, Zea indentata for the dent corns, Zea amylacea for the soft corns, and Zea saccharata for the sweet corns.

× 150.—(Courtesy of Bureau of Chemistry.) Shows cells with the small angular starch grains closely packed together within them.

Argument in favor of the specific claims for these groups is based primarily on the convenience thus attained; secondarily, on the absence or rarity of intermediate or connecting forms, so far as present data extend, and also on the antiquity of the separation. It seems almost certain that in the order of evolution (excluding from consideration the puzzling sweet corn group) progress has been from the pops, through the flints and the dents, to the softs. Certainly the soft corns in some of their varieties present a kernel that is larger, softer, and less fitted to the struggle with natural conditions than is the kernel from any of the other groups. Yet soft corns are the prevailing form in the mummy burials of Peru and of our Southwestern states. The popcorn, on the contrary, has stronger regerminative powers than have the other groups, is better fitted to contend against natural vicissitudes, and is the kind that has been reported as found growing wild in Mexico under the name of Coyote corn, Zea canina Watts.

Some of these subdivisions may not be accepted by botanists, but they are