On Thanksgiving Day, Microsoft Bing's wallpaper of the day was a picture of Flint Corn, also known as Indian corn or sometimes calico corn, but I've always heard it called Indian corn. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, and sweet corn. Because each kernel has a hard outer layer to protect the soft endosperm, it is likened to being hard as flint; hence the name. When I read that, it reminded me of a T-shirt a guy at work had a long time ago, FLINT - NO PLACES FOR P***IES. A hard city and a hard corn are both named after a hard mineral.
Popcorn (Zea mays everta, "corn turned inside out") is considered a variant of this type. It has a hard, slightly translucent kernel. Flint corn is also the type of corn preferred for making hominy, a staple food in the Americas since pre-Columbian times. In the United States the flint corn cultivars that have large proportions of kernels with hues outside the yellow range are primarily used ornamentally as part of Thanksgiving decorations. They are often called either "ornamental corn" or "Indian corn", although each of those names has other meanings as well. These varieties can be popped and eaten as popcorn, although many people incorrectly believe that such colored varieties are not palatable or are poisonous. I never heard of anyone thinking they were poisonous, but some do make small kernels when you pop them. I recently had a bag of Smoked Gouda popcorn that was made with Ruby Red kernels and pure olive oil, and it wasn't very big.
Because flint corn has a very low water content, it is more resistant to freezing than other vegetables. It was the only Vermont crop to survive New England's infamous "Year Without a Summer" of 1816. The coloration of flint corn is often different from white and yellow dent corns, many of which were bred later. Most flint corn is multi-colored. Like the Linnaeus variant of maize, any kernel may contain the yellow pigment zeaxanthin but at more varying concentrations. Regional varieties with specific coloration include Blue corn and Purple corn. Glass Gem corn became internet famous in 2012 when photos of this brightly colored flint corn went viral. So I went down that rabbit hole yesterday. Glass Gem Corn is a Native American heirloom flint corn, or maize. It is a variety of what people call "Indian corn" and is considered unique due to its rainbow coloring. The corn variety was created in the 1980s by ancestral corn breeder, Carl "White Eagle" Barnes, an Oklahoma native of half Cherokee, half Scotch-Irish descent. Glass Gem Corn has been called the "poster child" for the return to heirloom seeds. It became popular on social media in 2012 due to its unique appearance. Enthusiasts save its seeds to plant again and to trade with others.
Glass gem corn was created in the 1980s when Barnes cross bred a mixture of Pawnee miniature popcorn, Osage Red Flour and Osage Greyhorse corns. Barnes isolated the 3 varieties of ancestral corns from plants which volunteered in his fields. These corns were historically grown by the Cherokee and the Pawnee. This created a little eared corn with jewel-toned, translucent kernels. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s Barnes continued to grow this corn on his own land but it didn't gain a wider audience until Barnes met Greg Schoen at a native-plant gathering in 1994. Barnes and Schoen became friends and in 1995, Barnes gave Schoen a handful of seeds for the little jewel-tone corn. Through the late 1990s into the early 2000s Barnes and Schoen continued planting Glass Gem Corn in small patches. However, starting in 2005 Schoen and his friend Jose Lucero of Santa Clara Pueblo, NM began growing this corn among the larger Pueblo and Spanish flour corns grown in the area. This interbreeding gave the smaller rainbow corn deeper color and new robustness. During this time Schoen began calling the rainbow corn Glass Gem. In 2008, Schoen gave seeds to growers in India, Israel, Kenya, Mexico and the U.S. One of the people who received these seeds was Bill McDorman, former Executive Director of Native Seeds/SEARCH. McDorman used this corn in educational programs sparking interest in this corn. Then in 2012, a picture of Glass Gem went viral. This caused a cult like following of this corn to occur, complete with Facebook pages and Instagram accounts. Not following anti-social media much, I never heard about it. Native Seeds/SEARCH is conserving and making Glass Gem publicly available.
Except for the Bing Wallpaper on my desktop, I found all these pics at Wikipedia, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Business Insider, and Mother Earth News. I have the variety names I know on the pics, but that''s only a small handful out of dozens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_corn# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Gem_Corn https://www.nativeseeds.org/pages/glass-gem-corn https://www.businessinsider.com/the-story-behind-glass-gem-corn-2013-10 https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/glass-gem-corn-seed-zwfz1212zrob/ 
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