The wild ancestor of domesticated maize; grew and grows wild throughout the American tropics. The mutation of a very few teosinte genes changes the spikey stem, with its small, encased seeds, into a cob with a larger number of bigger, naked kernels.

wild maize, from which the domesticated species evolved

The teosintes make up a group of large grasses of the genus Zea found in Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua. There are five recognized species of teosinte: Zea diploperennis, Zea perennis, Zea luxurians, Zea nicaraguensis and Zea mays. The last species is further divided into four subspecies: ssp. mays, ssp. huehuetenangensis, ssp. mexicana, and ssp. parviglumis, the last three also are teosintes.