During the last two years 42 collections of maize from the People's Republic of China were obtained. Among them 14 collections were provided by the American Plant Studies Delegation to China. Last summer all of these collections were planted in the nursery here for cytological and genetical examination. Two weeks after seedling emergence, a study was made on the seedling characters. Three collections, 76-Honan-3, 76-Honan-7 and 76-Honan-8, showed a segregation of approximately three green seedlings to one virescent. The virescent seedlings appeared homozygous for virescent-1, because they gradually turned green after being six weeks old. When they were two months old, the plants were practically normal in morphological characteristics, with green leaves and normal height. Pollen fertility and seedsets of these mutants were also about the same as the normal green sibs. From two to three virescent plants for each collection were crossed with a tester plant (v1/v1) for further studies.

In addition, 35 of the above 42 collections were successfully grown here for studies. Plants of the rest of the seven collections did not mature in time for experiments. For the well-grown plants three of each collection were employed for selfing and five for crossing with an inbred maize, Wilber's Flint. Many of the F1 hybrids are now growing in the greenhouse for cytological examinations. The plants appear very healthy.

Y. C. Ting

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