What Wild Plant Species Did Maize Possibly Come From?

Teocinte

• Botanists George Beadle and Walton Galinat point to the perennial teocinte as the maize plant's wild ancestor. This recently discovered species grows wild only in Mexico and Central America. Teocinte has two rows of kernels, and two kernels in each cupule, whereas modern domesticated maize possesses one kernel per cupule and many rows of kernels. At the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo in Morelia, Mexico, researchers focus on the possibility that maize evolved from teocinte in one macroevolutionary step. These researchers suspect that viral or corn smut infection or environmental changes caused the teocinte's male tassel to transform quickly over very few generations into a corn cob.

Tripsicum

• Paul Mangelsdorf of Harvard believes that maize, teocinte and other possible ancestors of the corn plant all developed from now-extinct tripsicum grasses in several different regions of the Americas. Tripsicum grass and maize belong to the same tribe, Maydeae, and subfamily, Panicoideae, and modern botanists create pest-resistant hybrids by crossing domesticated corn with modern versions of tripsicum grass. Modern tripsicum grasses grow up to 9 inches tall and supplement the diet of livestock and wild animals.

Tripsacum-Diploperennis Hypothesis

• In the 1990s, botanists introduced the tripsacum-diploperennis hypothesis, which proposes that domesticated maize rose from a teocinte-tripsacum hybrid. Comments from many botanists published in the peer-reviewed publication "Latin American Antiquity" point out that the most modern biological evidence supports teocinte as the ancestor of maize, rather than the process outlined in the tripsacum-diploperennis hypothesis.

Mythical Origins

• The Huichol believe the mother goddess Takotsi Nakawt brought the five variants of corn to earth through her daughter Girl of Blue Maize and sisters Red, Yellow, White and Spotted. Apaches tell the story of a small tame turkey who follows his master, an inveterate gambler, as he flees the homelands of his tribe. The loyal turkey rescues his master several times throughout the journey before running across a stretch of farmland, leaving the different varieties of corn kernels spread behind him.