Two families of tandem repeats, 180-bp and TR-1, have been found in the knobs of maize. In this study, we isolated 59 clones belonging to the TR-1 family from maize and teosinte. Southern hybridization and sequence analysis revealed that members of this family are composed of three basic sequences, A (67 bp); B (184 bp) or its variants B' (184 bp), 2/3B (115 bp), 2/3B' (115 bp); and C (108 bp), which are arranged in various combinations to produce repeat units that are multiples of approximately 180 bp. The molecular structure of TR-1 elements suggests that: (1) the B component may evolve from the 180-bp knob repeat as a result of mutations during evolution; (2) B' may originate from B through lateral amplification accompanied by base-pair changes; (3) C plus A may be a single sequence that is added to B and B', probably via nonhomologous recombination; and (4) 69 bp at the 3' end of B or B', and the entire sequence of C can be removed from the elements by an unknown mechanism. Sequence comparisons showed partial homologies between TR-1 elements and two centromeric sequences (B repeats) of the supernumerary B chromosome. This result, together with the finding of other investigators that the B repeat is also fragmentarily homologous to the 180-bp repeat, suggests that the B repeat is derived from knob repeats in A chromosomes, which subsequently become structurally modified. Fluorescence in situ hybridization localized the B repeat to the B centromere and the 180-bp and TR-1 repeats to the proximal heterochromatin knob on the B chromosome.