Q 01/05

Outside North America, corn is usually known by what name?

A) Millet

B) Maize

C) Sorghum

D) Barley

Answer · why

B) Maize

Maize, the name used across most of the world, comes via the Spanish maíz from the Taíno mahiz; Linnaeus used it for the species name Zea mays in 1753...

Q 02/05

Corn was first domesticated about 9,000 years ago in which present-day country?

A) Peru

B) Mexico

C) Guatemala

D) Brazil

Answer · why

B) Mexico

Maize was domesticated about 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River valley of southern Mexico, where its wild ancestor, a short bushy grass that looks no...

Q 03/05

What is the wild grass from which corn was domesticated?

A) Sorghum

B) Einkorn

C) Tripsacum

D) Teosinte

Answer · why

D) Teosinte

Teosinte, a bushy wild grass of Mexico, is maize's ancestor; changes in a handful of genes, notably tb1 and tga1, account for most of the difference b...

Q 04/05

Native Americans grew corn alongside beans and squash in a planting system known as what?

A) The Holy Trinity

B) The Triple Crown

C) The Three Brothers

D) The Three Sisters

Answer · why

D) The Three Sisters

In the Three Sisters system cornstalks held up the climbing beans, the beans fixed nitrogen for the soil, and broad squash leaves shaded out weeds and...

Q 05/05

The male flowers at the top of a cornstalk are called what?

A) The silk

B) The tassel

C) The husk

D) The ear

Answer · why

B) The tassel

The tassel is the cluster of male flowers at the top of the stalk; its pollen drifts on the wind down to the silks, the female parts that emerge from ...