Zea mays |
Zea mays subsp. mays |
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corn, cultivated corn |
corn, Indian corn, mais, maize |
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Habit | Plants annual. | |||||||||||||
Culms | (0.5)1-3(6) m tall, (0.5)1-5 cm thick. |
(1)2-4(6) m tall, (1)2-5 cm thick. |
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Blades | mostly 30-90 cm long, 2.5-12 cm wide. |
50-90 cm long, 3-12 cm wide. |
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Caryopses | concealed in fruitcases (wild taxa) or exposed (domesticated taxon); fruitcases of wild taxa distichous, triangular in side view; domesticated taxon without fruitcases, glumes reduced and shallow or collapsed and embedded in the rachis. |
60-1000+, exposed and naked. |
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Pistillate | inflorescences rames or spikes, usually shortly pedunculate (sometimes sessile), solitary, 4-30(40) cm long, (0.5)1-10 cm thick, with 2 or more rows of paired spikelets, hence the spikelets 4 or more ranked, rarely terminating in an unbranched staminate inflorescence. |
inflorescences spikes, 15-25(40) cm long, 2-5(10) cm thick, cylindrical, tightly and permanently enclosed in several to many leaf sheaths and a large prophyll, with 8-24 or more rows of paired spikelets on a thickened, strongly vascularized, tough rachis (cob), not disarticulating at maturity; fruitcases not developed, rachis internodes fused into the extra-vascular cylinder, glumes reduced, shallow. |
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Staminate | panicles 10-25+ cm, with 1-60(235) branches, internodes 1.5-8.2 mm; spikelets 9-14 mm long, 2.5-5 mm wide; lower glumes rounded dorsally, flexible, translucent, papery, loosely enclosing the upper glumes, the 2 lateral veins subequal to the others, not winged. |
panicles with a polystichous central axis and non-disarticulating branches; central axes usually much denser and thicker than the usually distichous lateral branches, these lacking abscission layers. |
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2n | = 20. |
= 20. |
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Zea mays |
Zea mays subsp. mays |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; FL; GA; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NC; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OR; PA; RI; SC; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY; PR; ON; QC; Virgin Islands
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Discussion | Of the five subspecies of Zea mays, only the domesticated subspecies, Z. mays subsp. mays, is widely grown outside of research programs. Three wild subspecies are treated here, albeit briefly, because of their importance as genetic resources for Z. mays subsp. mays. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Zea mays subsp. mays is the familiar domesticated corn (or maize), from which around 400 indigenous races and many different kinds of cultivars have been developed. It is an obligate cultigen, unable to persist outside of cultivation because the caryopses are permanently attached to the rachis and enclosed by the subtending leaf sheaths. Supersweet cultivars have a double recessive gene that delays the conversion of sugar to starch; flint corns have unusually hard endosperm; and waxy cultivars have endosperm with an unusually high level of proteins and oils. Popcorns have a core of soft, relatively moist endosperm surrounded by hard endosperm. The grains "pop" when heat causes the moisture of the inner endosperm to vaporize. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 701. | FNA vol. 25, p. 701. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Andropogoneae > Zea | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Andropogoneae > Zea > Zea mays | ||||||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||
Name authority | L. | unknown | ||||||||||||
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