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Article: Corn
- Article from:
- Plant Sciences
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Corn
Corn, Indian corn, or maize is one of three grasses that account for almost half of all human calories consumed. The seed of these grasses are called cereals and each developed in a distinct part of the world: corn in the Americas, specifically Mexico/Guatemala (where its name is derived from the Arawak-Carib word
mahiz
, when Christopher Columbus first encountered the grain on the island of Cuba), and wheat and rice in the Old World. Corn was and still is the most important food plant for the indigenous people of the Americas. Its cultivation stretched from the Gasp
é
Peninsula of eastern Canada to Chile in South America. It is grown from sea level to elevations of ten thousand ...