NL·0133Herbarium of the Nature Library
- Name
- Zea mays
- Family
- Poaceae
- Native to
- Domesticated in south-western Mexico (Balsas valley) from Zea mays subsp. parviglumis; grown worldwide
- Habitat
- Tropical and temperate farmland, Highland milpa
Maize
Zea mays
Also calledCorn (US English) · Makka / Bhutta (Hindi/Urdu) · Ixim (Maya) · Tlaolli / Cintli (Nahuatl) · Sara (Quechua) · Yùmǐ (Chinese) · Mahindi (Swahili) · Dhurah shamiyya (Arabic)
Bred about 9,000 years ago in Mexico's Balsas River valley from teosinte, a wild grass with tiny, rock-hard seeds. Maize is now the world's most-produced grain by weight and cannot survive without people, since its kernels never fall free of the cob.
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. Wikipedia
What it can do
- iC4 photosynthesis makes it one of the most productive crops in heat and strong light
- iiEach silk is a pollen tube channel leading to one kernel
- iiiKernels remain locked on the cob, so maize depends entirely on humans to sow it
- ivGrown in the 'Three Sisters' polyculture: beans climb maize stalks and squash shades the soil
At the table
Eatenkernels (fresh, dried, ground, popped) · young cobs (baby corn) · silks (tea) · corn smut fungus (huitlacoche, a delicacy)
Safe when cooked. A diet dependent on untreated maize causes pellagra (niacin deficiency); nixtamalisation with lime, as practised in Mesoamerica, prevents it. Mouldy maize may carry aflatoxins.
In the medicine cabinet
| Tradition | Use |
|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese Medicine | Corn silk (yù mǐ xū) as a diuretic for oedema and urinary complaints |
| Mesoamerican medicine | Corn-silk tea and atole (maize gruel) for the sick and nursing mothers |
Weight of evidence
Traditional. Long historical use; little or no modern clinical evidence.
Active compounds
starch, zeaxanthin and lutein, ferulic acid, maysin (silk)
Fruit & seed
Fruit
Caryopsis (kernels on a cob)
Ripens: Late summer to autumn
Female inflorescence (ear) 15–30 cm wrapped in green husks with silky threads, bearing 8–24 rows of kernels on a central cob.
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Seed
8–12 mm
Wedge- to tooth-shaped kernels 8–12 mm, smooth and glossy; yellow, white, red, blue-purple or multicoloured; dent types show a dimple on top, flint types are round and hard
- Dispersal
- Humans only
- Germination
- Sow 3–5 cm deep once soil exceeds 10–12 °C; emerges in 5–10 days
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons under open licences; hover for the photographer, click for the file.
How to grow it
Hardiness (USDA zones)
Annual warm-season crop; frost-free season of 70–120+ days. Survives winters down to about undefined °C.
- Light
- Full sun
- Water
- Moderate–high, especially at tasselling and silking
- Soil
- Deep, fertile, well-drained loam, pH 5.8–7
- Propagation
- Seed
- To harvest
- Sweetcorn 65–100 days; grain maize 90–150 days
- Climates
- Temperate, Subtropical, Tropical, Tropical highland
- 1After the last frost, sow seeds 3–5 cm deep, 25–30 cm apart, in a block of at least four short rows rather than one long row — maize is wind-pollinated.
- 2Feed generously (it is a heavy nitrogen feeder) and keep weeds down while young; or interplant with climbing beans and squash in the Three Sisters pattern.
- 3Water deeply when tassels and silks appear; drought then leaves gaps on the cob.
- 4Pick sweetcorn about three weeks after silking, when silks are brown and a pierced kernel gives milky juice.
- 5For dry grain or popcorn, leave cobs on the plant until husks are papery, then dry further indoors and shell.
Can it grow where you are?
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Native range
Domesticated in south-western Mexico (Balsas valley) from Zea mays subsp. parviglumis; grown worldwide
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In Gerard's Herball, 1597
First Booke · Chap. 54 · p. 74 · read the page →
Of Turkie corne.
John Gerard, The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, London, 1597. What England's best-known herbal said of maize, in its own spelling.
- The vertues
- Turky wheate doth nourish far lesse than either Wheate, Rie, Barly or Otes. The bread which is made thereof is meanly white, without bran: it is hard and drie as bisket is, and hath in it no clammines at all: for which cause it is of hard digestion, and yeeldeth to the body little or no nourishment, it slowly descendeth and bindeth the belly, as that doth which is made of Mill or Panick. We haue as yet no certaine proofe or experience concerning the vertues of this kinde of Corne, although the barbarous Indians which know no better, are constrained to make a vertue of necessitie, and think it a good food; whereas we may easily iudge that it nourisheth but little, and is of hard and euill digestion, a more conuenient foode for swine than for men.
- The place
- These kinds of Graine were first brought into Spaine, and then into other prouinces of Europe, out of Asia which is in the Turkes Dominions, as also out of America and the Ilands adioyning from the east and west Indies, and Virginia or Norembega, where they vse to sowe or set it, and to make bread of it, where it groweth much higher than in other countries.
- The time
- It is sowen in these countries in March and Aprill, and the fruite is ripe in September.
- The names
- Turky wheat is called of some Frumentum Turcicum, and Milium Indicum. Strabo, Eratosthenes, Onesicritus, Plinie and others, haue contended about the name heereof, which I minde not to rehearse, considering how vaine and friuolous it is: but leauing it vntill such time as some one Oedipus or other shall bewraie any other name thereof that hath been described, or known of the old writers.
Gerard wrote within Galenic humoral medicine, and his opinions, including about the peoples of the Americas and their crops, are those of 1590s London. His “vertues” are history, not advice. Transcription: Source Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). The whole chapter in the Herball Room.
In the old herbals & bestiaries
Woodcuts and engravings matched from the Source Library’s scanned books by name. Plates marked “relative” show a close kin rather than this exact species. Click a plate to read the page it came from, with translation.
Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants
Leonhart Fuchs · 1542 · p.859
History of the Plants of New Spain, Volume 3
Francisco Hernández (1517-1587) · 1946 · p.192
Six Groups of the History of Plants
Rembert Dodoens · 1583 · p.521
Elements of Botany
Joseph Pitton de Tournefort · 1719 · p.54
Zhiwu Mingshi Tukao (Vol. 2)
吳其濬 · 1848 · p.34
History of the Plants of New Spain, Volume 3
Francisco Hernández (1517-1587) · 1946 · p.190
Rariorum Plantarum Historia (with Fungorum Historia)
Carolus Clusius · 1601 · p.597
History of Rare Plants
Carolus Clusius · 1601 · p.591
Of the Eggs and Nests of Birds
Giuseppe Zinanni (Ginanni) (1692-1753) · 1737 · p.257
The Book of Household Management
Mrs Isabella Beeton · 1861 · p.914
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Zea mays in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
Marginalia
In the K'iche' Maya Popol Vuh, the gods finally made true humans out of maize dough after failed attempts with mud and wood. The Aztec honoured maize deities such as Centeotl and Chicomecōātl.
Curiosity
Maize cobs about 6,250 years old from Guilá Naquitz cave in Oaxaca are tiny — one is only about 2.5 cm long.
Kinship
Fact-checked: 1 correction made to this sheet. Photographs: iNaturalist contributors under the licences shown. Records: GBIF.org. Historical plates: Source Library (CC BY-SA 4.0; originals public domain). Summary text: Nature Library editors and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Medicinal and edibility notes are historical and educational, not advice. iNaturalist taxon 48448.