Pod corn or wild maize is a variety of
maize (corn).[1][2] It is not a wild ancestor of maize but rather a mutant that forms leaves around each kernel.[3]
Pod corn (tunicata Sturt) is not grown commercially, but it is preserved in some localities.[4]
Pod corn forms
glumes around each kernel which is caused by a mutation at the
Tunicate locus.[a] Because of its bizarre appearance, pod corn has had a religious significance to certain Native American tribes.[5]
^Wingen, L. U., Munster, T., Faigl, W., Deleu, W., Sommer, H., Saedler, H., & Theissen, G.
(2012). Molecular genetic basis of pod corn (Tunicate maize). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(18), 7115-7120. doi:10.1073/pnas.1111670109
^Linda Campbell Franklin, "Corn," in Andrew F. Smith (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 (pp. 551–558), p. 553.
^More specifically, a gene ordinarily relating only to vegetative portions of the plant, called ZMM19, was apparently duplicated (in pre-Colombian times), leading to expression of the leafy sheath at the plant's inflorescences.Wingen, L. U., Munster, T., Faigl, W., Deleu, W., Sommer, H., Saedler, H., & Theissen, G. (2012),
Molecular genetic basis of pod corn (Tunicate maize), University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI: PNAS, p. 1, retrieved March 6, 2024{{
citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)