1.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
2.
Southwestern United States
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The population of the area is around 11 million people, with over half that in Arizona, the most populous cities are Phoenix, El Paso, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, and Tucson. Most of the area was part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in the Spanish Empire before becoming part of Mexico and it became part of the United States through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase. The deserts dominate the southern and western reaches of the area, the two major rivers of the region are the Colorado River, running in the northern and western areas, and the Rio Grande, running in the south. Formed approximately 8000 years ago, the Chihuahuan Desert is a dry desert. The Chihuahuan Desert spreads across the portion of the region, covering from southeastern Arizona, across southern New Mexico. While it is the second largest desert in the United States, only a third of the desert is within the United States, El Paso is the major city in this desert, with other smaller cities being Las Cruces and Roswell in New Mexico. The Chihuahuan is a rain shadow desert, formed two mountain ranges which block oceanic precipitation from reaching the area. The most prolific plants in this region are agave, yucca and creosote bushes, when people think of the desert southwest, the landscape of the Sonoran Desert is what mostly comes to mind. Rainfall averages between 4–12 inches per year, and the deserts most widely known inhabitant is the saguaro cactus and it is bounded on the northwest by the Mojave Desert, to the north by the Colorado Plateau and to the east by the Arizona Mountains forests and the Chihuahuan Desert. The portion of the Sonora Desert which lies in the Southwestern United States is the most populated area within the region. Six of the top ten major population centers of the region are found within its borders, Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, also within its borders are Yuma and Prescott Arizona. The most northwest portion of the American Southwest is covered by the Mojave Desert, bordered on the south by the Sonoran Desert and the east by the Colorado Plateau, its range within the region makes up the southeast tip of Nevada, and the northwestern corner of Arizona. In terms of topography, the Mojave is very similar to the Great Basin Desert, the Mojave is the smallest, driest and hottest desert within the United States. The Mojave gets less than six inches of rain annually, the most prolific vegetation is the tall Joshua tree, which grow as tall as 40 feet, and are thought to live almost 1000 years. Other major vegetation includes the Parry saltbush and the Mojave sage, the Colorado Plateau varies from the large stands of forests in the west, including the largest stand of ponderosa pine trees in the world, to the Mesas to the east. Although not called a desert, the Colorado Plateau is mostly made up of high desert, the Plateau is characterized by a series of plateaus and mesas, interspersed with canyons. The most dramatic example is the Grand Canyon, but that is one of many dramatic vistas included within the Plateau, which includes spectacular lava formations, painted deserts, sand dunes, and badlands. One of the most distinctive features of the Plateau is its longevity, the Plateau can be divided into six sections, three of which fall into the Southwest region
3.
Staple food
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The staple food of a specific society may be eaten as often as every day or every meal, and most people live on a diet based on just a small number of staples. Typical examples of staples include tubers and roots, and grains, legumes, such nonperishable foods are the only possible staples during seasons of shortage, such as dry seasons or cold temperate winters, against which times harvests have been stored. During seasons of plenty, wider choices of foods may be available. Most staple plant foods are derived either from cereals such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rice, or starchy tubers or root vegetables such as potatoes, yams, taro, arrowroot, other staple foods include pulses, sago, and fruits. Staple foods may contain, sorghum, olive oil, coconut oil. Most staples are plant materials, but in some fishing is the primary source of nutrition. Of the more than 50,000 edible plant species in the world, although there are over 10,000 species in the cereal family, just a few have been widely cultivated over the past 2,000 years. The staple food in different parts of the world is a function of weather patterns, local terrain, farming constraints, acquired tastes, for example, the main energy source staples in the average African diet are cereals, roots and tubers and animal products. In Western Europe the main staples in the diet are animal products, cereals and roots. Regional staples include rye, soybeans, barley, oats and teff, just 15 crop plants provide 90 percent of the worlds food energy intake, with rice, maize and wheat comprising two-thirds of human food consumption. The three are the staples of about 80% of the population, and rice feeds almost half of humanity. Roots and tubers, meanwhile, are important staples for over 1 billion people in the developing world, roots and tubers are high in carbohydrates, calcium and vitamin C but low in protein. Cassava root is a staple food in the developing world. With economic development and free trade, many countries have shifted away from low-nutrient-density staple foods to higher-nutrient-density staples, despite this trend, there is growing recognition of the importance of traditional staple crops in nutrition. Efforts are underway to identify better strains with superior nutrition, disease resistance, some foods like quinoa—a pseudocereal grain that originally came from the Andes—were also staple foods centuries ago. Oca, ulluco and amaranth seed are other foods claimed to be staples in Andean history, pemmican was a staple of the Plains Indians of North America. In 2010, the consumption of speciality grains such as quinoa was very small compared to other staples such as rice, wheat. These grains, once popular but then forgotten, are being reevaluated and reintroduced, most staple food is produced using modern and conventional farming practices
4.
Pre-Columbian era
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For this reason the alternative terms of Precontact Americas, Pre-Colonial Americas or Prehistoric Americas are also in use. In areas of Latin America the term used is Pre-Hispanic. Other civilizations were contemporary with the period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records, because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, men like Diego de Landa destroyed many texts in pyres, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture. Indigenous American cultures continue to evolve after the pre-Columbian era, many of these peoples and their descendants continue traditional practices, while evolving and adapting new cultural practices and technologies into their lives. Now, the study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific. Asian nomads are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering Strait, genetic evidence found in Amerindians maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. Over the course of millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout North and South America, exactly when the first group of people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago, however, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate the colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago, the chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurring no earlier than 14, 000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the long chronology theory, which proposes that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at an earlier date, possibly 50. In that case, the Eskimo peoples would have arrived separately and at a later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago. The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded and it finally stabilized by about 10,000 years ago, climatic conditions were then very similar to todays. Within this timeframe, roughly pertaining to the Archaic Period, numerous archaeological cultures have been identified, the unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The paleo-indians were hunter-gatherers, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family and these groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon, Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools
5.
Stream
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A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and banks. Streams are important as conduits in the cycle, instruments in groundwater recharge. The biological habitat in the vicinity of a stream is called a riparian zone. Given the status of the ongoing Holocene extinction, streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats, the study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology and is a core element of environmental geography. Brook A stream smaller than a creek, especially one that is fed by a spring or seep and it is usually small and easily forded. A brook is characterised by its shallowness and its bed being composed primarily of rocks, creek In North America, Australia and New Zealand, a small to medium-sized natural stream. Sometimes navigable by motor craft and may be intermittent, in parts of Maryland, New England, the UK and India, a tidal inlet, typically in a salt marsh or mangrove swamp, or between enclosed and drained former salt marshes or swamps. In these cases, the stream is the stream, the course of the seawater through the creek channel at low. River A large natural stream, which may be a waterway, runnel the linear channel between the parallel ridges or bars on a shoreline beach or river floodplain, or between a bar and the shore. Tributary A contributory stream, or a stream which does not reach the sea, sometimes also called a branch or fork. There are a number of names for a stream. Allt is used in Highland Scotland, beck is used in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Dumfriesshire, Cumbria, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire. Bourne or winterbourne is used in the chalk downland of southern England, brook is used in the Midlands, Lancashire and Cheshire. Burn is used in Scotland and North East England, gill or ghyll is seen in the north of England and other areas influenced by Old Norse. Rivulet is an term encountered in Victorian era publications, stream is used in Southern England. Syke is used in lowland Scotland and Cumbria for a seasonal stream, branch is used to name streams in Maryland and Virginia. Falls is also used to name streams in Maryland, for streams/rivers which have waterfalls on them, little Gunpowder Falls and The Jones Falls are actually rivers named in this manner, unique to Maryland. Kill in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey comes from a Dutch language word meaning riverbed or water channel, run in Ohio, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or West Virginia can be the name of a stream
6.
Hunter-gatherer
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A hunter-gatherer is a human living in a society in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, in contrast to agricultural societies, which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was humanitys first and most successful adaptation, occupying at least 90 percent of human history, following the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers who did not change have been displaced or conquered by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement their activity with horticulture and/or keeping animals. In the 1970s, Lewis Binford suggested that humans were obtaining food via scavenging. Early humans in the Lower Paleolithic lived in forests and woodlands, which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals for meat, according to this view and this hypothesis does not necessarily contradict the scavenging hypothesis, both subsistence strategies could have been in use – sequentially, alternating or even simultaneously. It remained the only mode of subsistence until the end of the Mesolithic period some 10,000 years ago and this specialization of work also involved creating specialized tools such as, fishing nets, hooks, and bone harpoons. The transition into the subsequent Neolithic period is defined by the unprecedented development of nascent agricultural practices. Agriculture originated and spread in different areas including the Middle East, Asia, Mesoamerica. Forest gardening was also being used as a production system in various parts of the world over this period. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions, in the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved, whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually superior introduced species were selected and incorporated into the gardens, many groups continued their hunter-gatherer ways of life, although their numbers have continually declined, partly as a result of pressure from growing agricultural and pastoral communities. Many of them reside in the world, either in arid regions or tropical forests. Areas that were available to hunter-gatherers were—and continue to be—encroached upon by the settlements of agriculturalists. In the resulting competition for use, hunter-gatherer societies either adopted these practices or moved to other areas. In addition, Jared Diamond has blamed a decline in the availability of wild foods, as the number and size of agricultural societies increased, they expanded into lands traditionally used by hunter-gatherers. As a result of the now near-universal human reliance upon agriculture, archaeologists can use evidence such as stone tool use to track hunter-gatherer activities, including mobility. Most hunter-gatherers are nomadic or semi-nomadic and live in temporary settlements, mobile communities typically construct shelters using impermanent building materials, or they may use natural rock shelters, where they are available
7.
Yucca gigantea
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Yucca gigantea, is a Yucca species that is native to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the eastern part of Mexico. It is also naturalized in Puerto Rico, the Leeward Islands. Common names include spineless yucca, soft-tip yucca, blue-stem yucca, giant yucca and its flower, the izote, is the national flower of El Salvador. Although it can grow up to 9 m in height, with a spread to 4.5 m and it may have a thick, single trunk or be multitrunked resulting from a thickened, inflated, trunk-like lower base similar to an elephants foot. The leaves are strap-like, spineless and up to 1.2 m in length, white flowers are produced in the summer, followed by brown, fleshy fruits which are oval and up to 2.5 cm long. The species is most widely known today as Yucca elephantipes, the first mention of that name was by Eduard von Regel in February 1859. He claimed that a different species, Y. aloifolia, was known as Yucca elephantipes when grown in European gardens because of its thickened stem base. However, since he did not intend to offer Y. elephantipes as the correct name. In a major article on yuccas and allies in 1902, William Trelease also used the name Y. elephantipes and this came too late though, as Yucca gigantea had by then already been previously established. Charles Lemaire published the name Yucca gigantea in November 1859 and this is the name used by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families as of January 2014, although other sources use Yucca guatemalensis, published by Baker in 1872. The species can be grown in a variety of soils and is drought-tolerant, young plants are occasionally used as houseplants. Yucca gigantea may be subject to a number of pests including scale, Yucca moth borers, plants are subject to root rot if overwatered. Leaf spot may affect the appearance of the leaves, but it does not affect the health of the plant, propagation is by suckers, cuttings or seed. A number of cultivars have been released including, Artola Gold Jewel Puck Silver Star, the plants are often used on coffee estates to prevent soil erosion on steep slopes
8.
Cactus
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A cactus is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word cactus derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek κάκτος, kaktos, Cacti occur in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Most cacti live in habitats subject to at least some drought, many live in extremely dry environments, even being found in the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on earth. Cacti show many adaptations to conserve water, almost all cacti are succulents, meaning they have thickened, fleshy parts adapted to store water. Unlike many other succulents, the stem is the part of most cacti where this vital process takes place. Most species of cacti have lost true leaves, retaining only spines, as well as defending against herbivores, spines help prevent water loss by reducing air flow close to the cactus and providing some shade. In the absence of leaves, enlarged stems carry out photosynthesis, Cacti are native to the Americas, ranging from Patagonia in the south to parts of western Canada in the north—except for Rhipsalis baccifera, which also grows in Africa and Sri Lanka. Cactus spines are produced from specialized structures called areoles, a kind of highly reduced branch, areoles are an identifying feature of cacti. As well as spines, areoles give rise to flowers, which are usually tubular, Cactus stems are often ribbed or fluted, which allows them to expand and contract easily for quick water absorption after rain, followed by long drought periods. Like other succulent plants, most cacti employ a mechanism called crassulacean acid metabolism as part of photosynthesis. Transpiration, during which carbon enters the plant and water escapes, does not take place during the day at the same time as photosynthesis. The plant stores the carbon dioxide it takes in as malic acid, retaining it until daylight returns, because transpiration takes place during the cooler, more humid night hours, water loss is significantly reduced. Many smaller cacti have globe-shaped stems, combining the highest possible volume for water storage, the tallest free-standing cactus is Pachycereus pringlei, with a maximum recorded height of 19.2 m, and the smallest is Blossfeldia liliputiana, only about 1 cm in diameter at maturity. A fully grown saguaro is said to be able to absorb as much as 200 U. S. gallons of water during a rainstorm, a few species differ significantly in appearance from most of the family. At least superficially, plants of the genus Pereskia resemble other trees and they have persistent leaves, and when older, bark-covered stems. Their areoles identify them as cacti, and in spite of their appearance, they, Pereskia is considered close to the ancestral species from which all cacti evolved. In tropical regions, other cacti grow as forest climbers and epiphytes and their stems are typically flattened, almost leaf-like in appearance, with fewer or even no spines, such as the well-known Christmas cactus or Thanksgiving cactus. Cacti have a variety of uses, many species are used as ornamental plants, others are grown for fodder or forage, cochineal is the product of an insect that lives on some cacti
9.
Nopal
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Nopal is a common name in Mexican Spanish for Opuntia cacti, as well as for its pads. There are approximately one hundred and fourteen known species endemic to Mexico, the nopal pads can be eaten raw or cooked, used in marmalades, soups stews and salads, as well as being used for traditional medicine or as fodder for animals. Farmed nopales are most often of the species Opuntia ficus-indica or Opuntia joconostle although the pads of almost all Opuntia species are edible, the other part of the nopal cactus that is edible is the fruit called the tuna in Spanish, and the prickly pear in English. Nopales are generally fresh in Mexico, cleaned of spines, and sliced to the customers desire on the spot, they can also be found canned or bottled. Cut into slices or diced into cubes, nopales have a light, slightly tart flavor, like beans. In most recipes, the liquid they contain is sometimes included in the cooking. They are at their most tender and juicy in the spring, nopales have also grown to be an important ingredient in New Mexican cuisine and in Tejano culture of Texas. Per US cup serving, nopal fruit is an excellent source of the mineral manganese. Its calcium may not be available because it is present as calcium oxalate. Dietary nopales is under research for how it may affect the glycemic index. The nopal cactus grows extensively throughout Mexico, being abundant in the central Mexican arid. In Mexico there are three million hectares of land used to cultivate nopal. There are three ways to cultivate nopal cacti — commercial plantations, family farms and gardens, or in the wild. The main use for cultivated nopal is for feed for livestock with one hundred, after that, approximately 57,000 ha are used to produce prickly pear fruit,10,500 ha for the pads production, and 100 ha to cochineal production. Nopal is grown in eighteen of the Mexican states with 74% in the Distrito Federal, the farming of nopal provides many subsistence communities with employment, food, income, and allows them to remain on their land. On the other hand, the insect was successfully used in Australia in 1925 to control the cactus population
10.
Agave americana
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Today, it is cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant. It has become naturalized in regions, including the West Indies, parts of South America, the southern Mediterranean Basin, and parts of Africa, India, China, Thailand. Despite the common name American aloe, it is not closely related to plants in the genus Aloe, although it is called the century plant, it typically lives only 10 to 30 years. It has a spread around 6–10 ft with gray-green leaves of 3–5 ft long, each with a prickly margin and a heavy spike at the tip that can pierce deeply. Near the end of its life, the plant sends up a tall, branched stalk, laden with yellow blossoms and its common name derives from its semelparous nature of flowering only once at the end of its long life. The plant dies after flowering, but produces suckers or adventitious shoots from the base, a. americana was one of the many species described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1753 edition of Species Plantarum, with the binomial name that is still used today. A. americana is cultivated as a plant for the large dramatic form of mature plants - for modernist, drought tolerant. It is often used in hot climates and where drought conditions occur, the plants can be evocative of 18th-19th-century Spanish colonial and Mexican provincial eras in the Southwestern United States, California, and xeric Mexico. It is also a landscape plant in beach gardens in Florida. Two subspecies and two varieties of A. americana are recognized by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, protamericana Gentry A. a. var. expansa Gentry A. a. var. If the flower stem is cut without flowering, a liquid called aguamiel gathers in the heart of the plant. This may be fermented to produce the drink called pulque, the leaves also yield fibers, known as pita, which are suitable for making rope, matting, or coarse cloth, and are used for embroidery of leather in a technique known as piteado. Both pulque and maguey fiber were important to the economy of pre-Columbian Mexico, in the tequila-producing regions of Mexico, agaves are called mezcales. The high-alcohol product of agave distillation is called mezcal, A. americana is one of several agaves used for distillation, a mezcal called tequila is produced from Agave tequilana, commonly called blue agave. The many different types of mezcal include some which may be flavored with the very pungent mezcal worm, in mezcal and tequila production, the sugars are extracted from the piñas by heating them in ovens, rather than by collecting aguamiel from the plants cut stalk. Thus, if one were to distill pulque, it would not be a form of mezcal, Agave nectar is marketed as a natural form of sugar with a low glycemic index that is due to its high fructose content. The plant figures in the coat of arms of Don Diego de Mendoza, el maguey y el pulque en los códices mexicanos. Mexico City, Fondo de Cultura Económica 1956, memoria sobre el maguey mexicano y sus diversos productos
11.
Maize
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Maize, also known as corn, is a large grain plant first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, the leafy stalk of the plant produces separate pollen and ovuliferous inflorescences or ears, which are fruits, yielding kernels or seeds. Maize kernels are used in cooking as a starch. Most historians believe maize was domesticated in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico, recent research modified this view somewhat, scholars now indicate the adjacent Balsas River Valley of south-central Mexico as the center of domestication. The Olmec and Mayans cultivated maize in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica, cooked and its believed that beginning about 2500 BC, the crop spread through much of the Americas. The region developed a network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops. Nevertheless, recent data indicates that the spread of maize took place even earlier, according to Piperno, A large corpus of data indicates that it was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP. Since then, even earlier dates have been published, the study also demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Later, maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths and this is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. Before they were domesticated, maize plants only grew small,25 millimetres long corn cobs, Maize is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas, with 361 million metric tons grown in the United States in 2014. Approximately 40% of the crop—130 million tons—is used for corn ethanol, genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. After the arrival of Europeans in 1492, Spanish settlers consumed maize and explorers and traders carried it back to Europe, Spanish settlers far preferred wheat bread to maize, cassava, or potatoes. Maize flour could not be substituted for wheat for bread, since in Christian belief only wheat could undergo transubstantiation. At another level, Spaniards worried that by eating indigenous foods, which they did not consider nutritious, that not only would they weaken, despite these worries, Spaniards did consume maize and archeological evidence from Florida sites indicate they cultivated it as well. Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates and it was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbuss voyages and then spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere. The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous Taíno word for the plant and it is known by other names around the world. The word corn outside North America, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize, this usage started as a shortening of Indian corn. Indian corn primarily means maize, but can more specifically to multicolored flint corn used for decoration
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