Abstract: Meiotic recombination has long been recognized as a driving force of evolution. However, little is known about the evolution of meiosis. To fill this gap, we take a variety of approaches to investigate how meiotic processes evolve in plants. Among others, we cloned the ameiotic 1 gene in maize, which is responsible for the switch from mitotic cell division to meiosis in maize, and found that the mechanism of meiosis initiation differs not only between fungi, mammals, and plants but also between monocot and dicot plants. We also studied sequence variation in several meiotic recombination genes in maize and its wild ancestor teosinte and discovered that a large fraction of these genes were targets of positive selection during maize domestication and subsequent breeding. These results suggest that even though meiosis is an ancient and conserved process some meiotic genes show rapid evolution.