Recent research interests in plant evolution focus more and more on compartmentalization of gene pools at different levels of ploidy, which allow for coexistence of different modes of reproduction. Equilibria between tetraploid-apomictic and diploid-sexual compartments have been discussed in Parthenium argentatum (Rollins et al., 1947), in the BothriochloaDichanthium complex (de Wet, 1968), and in Ranunculus auricomus (Nogler, 1978). The inverse, i.e., tetraploid-sexual and diploid-apomictic, although a rare event, may have played a part in the evolution of the genus Potentilla (Asker, 1978, 1979). r_ndiburu et al. (1974), on the other hand, nonstrated a different kind of com*tmentalization of gene pools, with tetbloid-self fertilization and diploid-self ompatibility systems. [he Panicum maximum agamic comx (Paniceae), like the Bothriochloa-Dinthium complex (Andropogoneae), begs to the subfamily Panicoideae of the imineae. Accessions from Kenya and nzania studied by Combes and Pernes 70) were shown to be either tetraploid = 32) and apomictic, or diploid (2n = and fully sexual. Analyses of natural )ulations (Pernes, 1972) demonstrated ee main population types: monomorc; polymorphic, discontinuous (i.e., the erent biotypes are morphologically well .erentiated); and intermediate but still hly polymorphic, continuous. This ;s includes mixed populations of dip-