🌽 CORN (MAIZE): FROM WILD GRASS TO CROP GIANT
PAGE 1 OF 5, A GRASS WITH A SECRET
HELLO, TEOSINTE
A COB? NOT YET
The corn on your plate is Zea mays—maize. Its wild cousin teosinte (say tay-oh-SIN-tay) looks more like a shy bundle of hard seeds on a spindly plant. In what is now Mexico and Central America, people long ago started choosing plants that had… more seeds, chunkier cobs, easier shells. They didn’t have DNA tools—just patience and sharp eyes—and after thousands of years, teosinte’s ghost turned into a cob as long as your forearm.
BREED!
WILD SIDE
🌾 Teosinte reminds us plants can hide a giant meal inside a tiny start.
MESOAMERICA
🌋 Hills and summer rains set the stage for the world’s first maize nurseries.