Meiotic Recombination is one of the central mechanisms by which genetic diversity can be generated. This genetic diversity is fundamental to evolution. Considerable evidence, including our work with maize, indicates that meiotic recombination does not occur evenly throughout the genome, and in fact recombination ``hot" spot and ``cold" spots can be identified in a genome. We propose to isolate and characterize alleles of a maize gene(the related species. Analyses of the resulting DNA sequences(using multiple sequence comparison programs) will test the hypothesis that intragenic recombination occurs at rates high enough to influence the course of evolution. In addition, the resulting data will impact current procedures used to build phyllogenic trees. In addition, allocated service units will be used to conduct database searches and amino acid sequence analyses associated with novel genes we have cloned. These genes are involved in nuclear-cytoplasmic interactions, cuticular wax biosynthesis, and root hair development.