Search
eco

Maize (Corn)

Maize, also known as corn, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. The leafy stalk of the plant gives rise to male inflorescences or tassels which produce pollen, and female inflorescences called ears. The ears yield grain, known as kernels or seeds. In modern commercial varieties, these are usually yellow or white; other varieties can be of many colors. Maize was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native Americans planted it alongside beans and squashes in the Three Sisters polyculture. That is, those three vegetables were the main staple crops of the time.

From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Research Mentions

PubMed → · research article

New gene combo speeds up lab-based corn engineering sevenfold

The sweet corn in your garden and the field corn feeding livestock down the road both depend on b...

mail

Weekly discoveries in your inbox

Get the week's most interesting plant science — one email, every Saturday. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

You'll get a confirmation email — check spam if you don't see it within 5 minutes.

Taxonomy

Scientific: Zea mays
Genus: Zea
Kingdom: Plantae
Hardiness: Zone 10
Habit: grass
Bloom: Early Summer