Corn Silk

HERE WE ARE NEAR THE END of our fresh corn season. I’ve decided to borrow excerpts from an essay I wrote a few years ago and add some newer insights from a passage I read a couple of weeks ago by renowned biologist R.W. Kimmerer, all focused on the miracle of pollination and kernel formation.

Stay calm, I’ll keep it understandable for all of us.

As summer glides to September, I've been reminded of our region's bounty of fresh produce. Recently, I've focused on my love for fresh corn-on-the-cob, available daily for over a month at local roadside stands. What a delight and taste treat these ears of corn offer us, but the story behind this amazing vegetable is equally tantalizing. At least I think it is, and this is my dime.

The act of “shucking” corn reveals an array of “secrets” that I’m confident most of us were not particularly aware of. This insight of knowledge came to me years ago with the help of my first boss while I was interning at an international seed company in Minnesota.

Did you know corn kernels are formed on the ear at the end of a pollen tube? We commonly call this anatomical feature “silk”. Each row of seeds is formed using its own pollen tube (the silk strands) that transfer microscopic pollen grains from the plant’s tassels.

Now, to add to my description, I gladly borrow my newly discovered expert's explanation, which flows as naturally as the wind. 

A corncob is an ingenious sort of flower in which the silk is a greatly elongated pistil. One end of the silk waves in the breeze to collect pollen, while the other end attaches to the ovary. The silk is the water-filled conduit for sperm released from pollen grains that are caught there. The corn sperm swim down the silken tube to the milky-white kernel – the ovary. Only when the kernels are fertilized will they grow plump and yellow. The corncob is the mother of hundreds, as many children as there are kernels, each with potentially a different father. Each little strand of silk connects a different kernel inside the husk to the world outside.

Think about that phenomenon in nature - It is truly remarkable! It might be right up there with the pages in Playboy during my youth.

Enjoy your next ear of corn, as squash and pumpkins will soon roll in.