On the weekend we acquired our first corn of the season from our local farmer's market. It was picked that morning, and we had it for lunch, so it was almost the sweetest corn-on-the-cob imaginable - it could only get better if we were sitting in the field it grew in and pulling it off the plant and popping it into our mouths right there!
While I was taking the leaves off from around the corn cob I noticed a definite pattern. If you hold the cob at the stem, with the small end facing up, the leaves grow around the corn cob to the left in a clockwise manner. Taking the leafs off one at a time starting at the left and working to the right works well. Taking the leafs off one at a time starting at the right will give you a big knot of leaves that is tough to pull off.
From what I've read, the petals of a daisy grow in a similar pattern to the corn husks. So playing "he loves me, he loves me not" with a daisy is much easier if you pluck the petals off in a counter-clockwise progression around the flower - if the flower is from north of the equator. But if the daisy has grown in an area south of the equator, the petals grow in the other direction!
It's a memorable part of listening to travelers who have been south of the equator, to hear them describe how the flushed water in a toilet swirls in the opposite direction to what we are used to in the northern hemisphere.
It seems that more than just the water swirls in the other direction.
If the daisy grows in the other direction, maybe other plants do too. I haven't found evidence for corn growing in the other direction yet, but apparently the swirly patterns on butterfly wings swirl in the other direction, and the ozone layer swirls differently at the different poles... so maybe swirling is an integral part of that planet thing.
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