The generic name is from Ancient Greek κόϊξ (koix), which originally referred to the doum palm (Hyphaene thebaica); the fruits of the doum palm resemble the diaspores of Coix.[7]
This genus was formerly placed in the Maydeae, now known to be polyphyletic.[Sch 1]
Proteins and expression
Members of this genus produce their own variety of α-zeinprolamins. These prolamins have undergone unusually rapid evolutionary divergence from closely related grasses, by way of copy-number changes.[Sch 2]
References
^lectotype designated by Green, Prop. Brit. Bot.: 187 (1929)
^Arora, R. K., 1977, "Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi) - a minor food and fodder crop of northeastern India." Economic Botany, Volume 31, issue 3, pages 358–366.
^p.331, "Maize and Tripsacum were previously grouped with a number of other grasses that have monoecious flowering patterns — the most widely known being Job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi) — into the Maydeae (74); however, molecular data revealed that this grouping was polyphyletic (61)."
^p.335, "Clusters of locally duplicated genes can also expand and contract rapidly, as shown by investigation of the 22-kDa α zein gene families in maize, sorghum, and coix, which appear to have experienced independent copy-number amplifications since the divergence of these three species (107)."
