The diversity of maize (Zea mays) is the backbone of modern heterotic patterns and hybrid breeding. Historically, US farmers exploited this variability to establish today’s highly productive Corn Belt inbred lines from blends of dent and flint germplasm pools. Here, we report de novo genome sequences of four European flint lines assembled to pseudomolecules with scaffold N50 ranging from 6.1 to 10.4 Mb. Comparative analyses with two US Corn Belt lines explains the pronounced differences between both germplasms. While overall syntenic order and consolidated gene annotations reveal only moderate pangenomic differences, whole-genome alignments delineating the core and dispensable genome, and the analysis of heterochromatic knobs and orthologous long terminal repeat retrotransposons unveil the dynamics of the maize genome. The high-quality genome sequences of the flint pool complement the maize pangenome and provide an important tool to study maize improvement at a genome scale and to enhance modern hybrid breeding.

玉米的多样性（Zea mays) 是现代杂种优势模式和杂交育种的支柱。从历史上看，美国农民利用这种可变性从马齿和燧石种质库的混合物中建立了当今高产的玉米带自交系。在这里，我们报告了四个欧洲燧石系的从头基因组序列，它们组装成具有 6.1 到 10.4 Mb 的支架 N50 的假分子。与两条美国玉米带系的比较分析解释了两种种质之间的显着差异。虽然整体同线顺序和整合基因注释仅揭示了适度的泛基因组差异，但描绘核心和可有可无的基因组的全基因组比对以及异染色质旋钮和直系同源长末端重复反转录转座子的分析揭示了玉米基因组的动态。