Botanical Name: Zea mays L.
Family: Gramineae
Origin: Central America and Mexico. It has introduced into India by the Portuguese during the seventeenth century.

Types of maize
Based on the composition and endosperm, maize is divided into following sixth groups.

1) Dent corn (Zea mays indentata, sturt)
Dent corn is the most widely grown type in the USA, Canada and Australia. It is characterized by a depression or dent on the top of seed, which has soft starch. The sides of the seed have hard starch. Rapid drying and shrinkage of soft starch results in denting.
2) Flint corn (Zea mays indureta)
Flint corn is widely grown in Europe, Asia, South America and Central America. The kernels are hard and smooth containing soft starch surrounded by hard starch. Often-earlier maturity and earlier vigor and more tillers than dent.
3) Sweet corn (Zea mays saccharata sturt)
Translucent and wrinkled kernels characterize sweet corn maize when it matures. It is grown primarily in USA where cobs (ears) are picked green for canning and table use as they contain about 5 % sugar as compared to 2 per cent in dent type and 2.3 % in flint type (Cv.Madhuri).
4) Pop corn (Zea mays awerta sturt)
Popcorn is an extreme form of flint containing a very small proportion of soft starch surrounded by hard starch. The ability to pop seems to be conditioned by the hard starch where the starch grains are embedded in a tough calcite colloidal material, which confines and resists. The steam pressure generated within the grain upon heating until it touches explosive force. It contains even higher percentage of hard starch than flint corn (cv. Amber).
5) Flour corn or soft corn (Zea mays amylacea)
6) The endosperm consists largely of soft starch with little or no hard starch
7) Waxy corn (Zea mays ceretina kulesh)
The kernels appearance is waxy. A starch molecule differs considerably from that of other types and resembles glycogen. The starch is gummy and has some of the characteristics of tapioca.