"Current evidence suggests that teosinte was first tended for its green ears and sugary pith by hunter-gatherers as an occasional rainy-season food in small “garden” populations away from its homeland, and not for its abundant grain-containing, hard fruitcases, which easily mass-collected but useless as food, are as yet unknown from the archeological record. A rare grain-liberating teosinte mutation (probably expressed in only one “founder” plant, a mazoid “Eve”), which exposed the encased grain for easy harvest, was soon recognized as useful, collected and planted (or self-planted). Thus maize was started on its way to a unique horticultural domestication that is not comparable to that of the temperate Old World mass-selected agricultural grains."
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Environmentalists from the United StatesPeople from the Czech RepublicBiologists from the United StatesBotanists from the United States
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(quote from p. 7)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hugh_Iltis
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Hugh Iltis
Hugh Iltis (April 7, 1925 – December 19, 2016) was an American environmentalist and professor of botany.
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