Corn

Corn is both one of the most familiar and one of the least understood of America’s common plants. Although most Americans can identify corn as they see it growing between May and November from New England to Florida and westward to the Pacific, they consume corn unknowingly in hundreds of foods, most of them bearing no resemblance to the original grain. It is one of the most easily identifiable grain plants to the eye, but its story is complex and full of mystery and much debate.

The use of the word “corn” for what is termed “maize” by most other countries is peculiar to the United States. Europeans who were accustomed to the names “wheat corn,” “barley corn,” and “rye corn” for other small-seeded cereal grains referred to the unique American grain maize as “Indian corn.” The term was shortened to just “corn,” which has become the American word for the plant of American genesis.