Indian Corn

I always knew it as Indian corn, but this year I wondered if that was politically correct or even accurate.

It would more accurately be called flint corn (Zea mays var. indurata) and sometimes as calico corn. It is a variant of maize, the same species as common corn. For this variety, each kernel has a hard outer layer that is compared to flint.

Flint corn has become a symbol of harvest season and these multicolored ears often adorn doors and centerpieces.

Did you know that corn does not grow wild anywhere in the world? It is a domesticated plant that evolved sometime in the last 10,000 years. Its original form was teosinte, a form of wild Mexican grass.

Good old troublemaker Christopher Columbus brought corn to Europe in the late 1400s. The American Indians used it as a dietary staple and the colonists learned how to cultivate it from them.

The most commonly grown kind of corn in America is dent or field corn which is used to feed livestock, for the manufacture of industrial products and processed foods. It is a yellow or white corn and it is called dent for the indentation that appears on the outside of its mature kernels.

We eat sweet corn (also yellow and white), which can be cooked and eaten right on the cob, and is also sold canned or frozen. Like dent corn, its kernels are usually yellow or white.

Flint corn, or Indian corn, is one of the oldest varieties of corn and is white, blue and red. It has  very low water content and so it is more resistant to freezing than other vegetables. The kernels have a bit of soft starch surrounded by hard starch, so they dry and shrink uniformly and are less prone to spoiling. It is type of corn ideal for harvesty décor, but it is also consumed by livestock and for people it can be used for hominy and polenta.

Popcorn is Zea mays everta meaning "corn turned inside out" and is considered a variant of Indian corn.

And Indian corn is a historically accurate name.

Rose of Sharon and Lily of the Valley

One flower commonly referred to in America as a "Rose of Sharon"

The Rose of Sharon and Lilies of the Valley are two of a number of flowers referenced in some translations of the Bible. However, there are many translations and interpretations of what the actual flower being referenced is in our modern taxonomy.

Rose of Sharon is a common name used to describe different species of flowering plants. It is not an actual rose but generally a member of Rosaceae.

The name "rose of Sharon" first appears in English in 1611 in the King James Version of the Bible. In the song of Solomon ch2 v1 the speaker (the beloved) says "I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley".

Earlier translations had called it “the flower of the field.” Other translations of the Hebrew word hasharon are translated as rose, lily jonquil and crocus and some scholars have suggested that the Biblical "rose of Sharon" may also be a tulip or narcissus or simply a sprouting bulb.

The Biblical interpretations are many, including:
- A kind of crocus growing as a lily among the brambles ("Sharon", Harper's Bible Dictionary)
- A crocus that grows in the coastal plain of Sharon (New Oxford Annotated Bible);
- Lilium candidum, more commonly known as the Madonna lily, a species of lily suggested by some botanists, though likely in reference to the lilies of the valley mentioned in the second part of Song of Solomon 2:1.

Lily of the valley (or lily-of-the-valley) has the scientific name Convallaria majalis. It is a sweetly scented, but highly poisonous woodland flowering plant that is native throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere in Asia, and Europe.

Scientists place it in the subfamily Nolinoideae which was formerly the family Ruscaceae - which sounds very similar to the Rosaceae of the Rose of Sharon and earlier it had been in the lily family Liliaceae.

This is also known as Our Lady's tears or Mary's tears. These names come from Christian legends that it sprang from the weeping of the Virgin Mary during the crucifixion of Jesus.

The name "lily of the valley" is used in some English translations of the Bible in Song of Songs 2:1, but the Hebrew phrase "shoshannat-ha-amaqim" in the original text (literally "lily of the valleys") does not refer to this plant but probably some other true lily.

The modern flower given this name is used symbolically as a symbol of humility and a sign of Christ's second coming and a vision of a better world.

Primrose

Because it blooms so early in the springtime ) throughout much of Europe), the common primrose is given its name.  The word"primrose" is from Old French primerose through medieval Latin prima rosa, meaning "first rose." The plant is actually not closely related to the rose family, though that may not have been known when it entered English in the first half of the fifteenth century.

Primula vulgaris is a species native to western and southern Europe and east to Germany, Ukraine, the Crimea, and the Balkans and into northwest Africa and southwest Asia.

It is an edible plant and its flowers can be made into wine.

The Evening Primrose (Oenothera) is a genus of about 125 species of herbaceous flowering plants, native to North and South America. It is also known as suncups and sundrops. Although they share the name, they are not closely related to the true primroses and not really related to early spring.

This was a plant we had in our home garden and as a child I loved the fact that unlike all the other flowers, they opened within minutes of  "evening."

Most of the species have yellow flowers but there are white (especially desert plants), purple, pink and red. a few.

Primrose has become a more popular baby name recently because of the books and movies of the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. Primrose Everdeen is the name of the main character's beloved kid sister who follows in the herbal healing ways of her mother.

Primrose is also the name of some American towns including ones in Alaska, Nebraska, Rhode Island
and Wisconsin.