A spontaneous white panicle mutant was found from the F6 progenies of an indica/japonica cross. The mutant exhibits white stripes on its basal leaves while the panicles, rachis and pedicel are milky white colored at flowering stage. Genetic analysis in an F2 population from the cross of Zhi7/white panicle mutant indicates that the white panicle phenotype is controlled by a single recessive nuclear gene, tentatively termed as wp(t). Using microsatellite markers, the wp(t) gene was anchored between the markers of SSR101 and SSR63.9 with a map distance of 2.3 and 0.8 cM, respectively, and co-segregated with the marker of SSR17 on rice chromosome 1.