MAIZE or INDIAN CORN, Zea Mays (from
or Et.6., which appears to have been "spelt," Triticum spelta, according to the description of Theophrastus), a plant of the tribe Maydeae of the family Gramineae or grasses.
Maize is unknown in the native state, but is most probably indigenous to tropical America. Small grains of an unknown variety have been found in the ancient tombs of Peru, and Darwin found heads of maize embedded on the shore in Peru at 85 ft. above the present sea-level. Bonafous, however (Histoire naturelle du ntais), quotes authorities (Bock, 1532, Ruel and Fuchs) as believing that it came from Asia, and maize was said by Santa Rosa de Viterbo to have been brought by the Arabs into Spain in the 13th century. A drawing of maize is also given by Bonafous from a Chinese work on natural history, Li-chi-tchin, dated 1562, a little over sixty years after the dis covery of the New World. It is not figured on Egyptian monu ments, nor was any mention made of it by Eastern travellers in Africa or Asia prior to the 16th century. Humboldt, Alphonse de Candolle and others say that it originated solely in America, where it had been long and extensively cultivated at the period of the discovery of the New World; and that is the accepted modern view. Some believe that maize originated as a hybrid between teosinte (Euchlaena mexicana), a common Mexican fodder grass, and an unknown grass belonging to the tribe Andropogoneae; others say that teosinte and maize had a common ancestor, a stout grass with numerous branches, each ending in a tassel-like cluster of flowers containing both stamens and pistils. Modern maize probably originated from wild pod corn.
The plant has the male and female flowers on the same plant, producing the staminate (male) flowers in a large feathery panicle at the summit, and the (female) dense spikes of flowers, or "cobs," in the axils of the leaves below, the long pink styles hanging out like a silken tassel. They are invested by the sheaths of leaves, much used in packing oranges in south Europe, and the more delicate ones for cigarettes in South America. Usually the sheaths terminate in a point, the blades being arrested. A spikelet of the female inflorescence con sists of two outer glumes, the lower one ciliated, which enclose two florets—one (a) barren (sometimes fertile), consisting of a flowering glume and pale only, and the other (b) fertile, contain ing the pistil with elongated style. The mass of styles from the whole spike is pendulous from the summit of the sheaths. More than three hundred varieties are known, which differ more among themselves than those of any other cereal. Some come to maturity in two months, others require seven months; some are as many feet high as others are inches; some have kernels eleven times as large as others. They vary similarly in shape and size of ears, colour of the grain, which may be white, yellow, purple, striped, etc., and also in physical characters and to some degree chemical
composition.
E. Lewis Sturtevant, who made an extended study of the forms and varieties, classed into seven groups those grown primarily for the grain, the distinguishing characters of which are based on the grains or kernels; there are, in addition, forms of horticultural interest grown for ornament. (I) Pod corn (var. tunicata) is characterized by having each kernel enclosed in a husk. (2) Pop corn (var. everta) has a very large proportion of the "endosperm"—the nutritious matter which with the small embryo makes up the grain—of a horny con sistency, which causes the grain to pop when heated, that is to say, the kernel becomes turned inside out by the explosion of the contained moisture. It is also characterized by the small size of the grain and ear. (31 Flint corn (var. indurata) has a starchy endosperm enclosed in a horny layer of varying thickness in the different varieties. The colour of the grain is white, yellow, red, blue or variegated. It is commonly cultivated in Canada and northern United States, where the seasons are too short for dent corn, and has been grown as far north as
N. lat. (4) Dent or field corn (var. indentata) has the starchy endosperm extend ing to the summit of the grain, with horny endosperm at the sides. The top of the grain becomes indented, owing to the drying and shrinkage of the starchy matter; the character of the indented surface varies with the height and thickness of the horny endo sperm. This is the form commonly grown in the United States; the varieties differ widely in the size of the plants and the appear ance of the ear. The colour varies greatly, being often white, yellow, mottled red, or less commonly red. (5) Soft corn (var. amylacea) has no horny endosperm, and hence the grains shrink uniformly. It is cultivated only to a limited extent in the United States, but seems to have been commonly grown by the Indians in many localities in North and South America. (6) Sweet corn (var. saccharata) is characterized by the translucent horny appear ance of the grains and their more or less wrinkled condition. It is pre-eminently a garden vegetable, the ear being used before the grain hardens, when it is well filled but soft and milky. It is often cooked and served on the cob ; when canned it is cut from the cob. Canned sweet corn is an important article of food in Canada and the United States. (7) In starchy sweet corn (var. amylea-saccharata) the grain has the external appearance of sweet corn, hut examination shows the lower half to be starchy, the upper horny and translucent. A form of flint corn, with variegated leaves, is grown for ornament under the name Zea japonica or Japanese striped corn, as is also the very dwarf, narrow-leaved variety Z. graciiiima.