1 6 MAIZE 



chap, used for food in several other countries, e.g. Sorghum vulgare, 

 L kaffir corn or Egyptian corn ; the " corn " which Joseph's 

 brethren went down into Egypt to buy was certainly not Indian 

 corn or maize. 



De Candolle (i) suggests that the rapidity of the recent 

 distribution of maize in Europe, Asia, and Africa completes 

 the proof, if further proof were needed, that had it previously 

 existed in Asia or Africa, maize would have played an impor- 

 tant part in agriculture for thousands of years, instead of being 

 but a comparatively modern culture. As recently as 1832 

 maize was grown in India only as an ornamental plant in 

 gardens, not as a regular farm crop for grain. 



.15. Meaning and History of the Botanical Name. — The 

 botanical name of the maize plant is Zea Mays. The generic 

 name Zea is derived from the Greek Zeta or Zea, a sort of 

 grain mentioned by Homer (Odyssey, 4, 41, 604) as used 

 for feeding horses. The Zeia of the Greeks was certainly not 

 the maize plant, which was unknown to them ; but when, in 

 1753, Linnaeus was renaming all the then known plants in 

 accordance with his new system of binominal nomenclature, 

 he used many of the classical names of the ancients, often 

 taking the risk of applying an old name to a new plant, where 

 the former was appropriate or pleasing. Linnaeus might, 

 however, have adopted the generic name " Mays," already 

 published by Tournefort in 1 7 19, and followed in 1729 by 

 Micheli who spelt it Mayz. 



The specific name Mays was used by the earlier botanical 

 writers, Matthiole (1570), Dodoens (1583), and Camerarius 

 (1588) as being the name under which the plant was intro- 

 duced from America. From their writings it was adopted by 

 Linnaeus. According to Prescott (1), Hernandez (1) derives 

 the name maize from the Haytian word ma-hiz ; this was the 

 name used for it by the Haytians when Columbus visited the 

 island in 1492. 



16. The Name Maize. — Maize is an Arawak word, met 

 with in many forms in South America and the West Indies, 

 e.g. mahiz, marisi, marichi, mariky, mazy, maysi, etc. This 

 name followed the introduction of the grain throughout Europe, 

 and was adopted into many of the European languages, being 

 variously spelled maiz, maize, mais, mays, mayz, or mayze. 



