corn, maize...i call it zea

the bear paw maize is coming along and has been spared ( until now anyway ) by the squirrels...the plant in the first photo has four ears growing off the stalk that you can see in the second photo..one is piggy-backed on another branching off to the left of the stalk...the swelling on the main stalk to their immediate right is another and further right and a bit lower in the frame you can see the silks of a fourth...it's not done yet though...the third photo is of a tiller off to the left of the main stalk and it has a fifth ear establishing itself...further down the row another plant ( fourth photo ) has two ears going on ( fifth ) and the tiller on the left in the sixth photo is producing a flower ( seventh ) which means more ears on the way ( given the reprieve from the squirrels continues )..lets see dense yellow #2 do that...the last photo is the obligatory "wild and weedy" maize ancestor teosinte...there's a lot of that there too and the squirrels won't touch it...hard, unforgiving seeds.