Cornsilk is the long styles and stigmata of the flower pistils. The stigmas are the fine soft, yellowish threads from the female flowers and are usually four to eight inches long. It is gathered when the plant has shed its pollen.

Cornsilk has often been used as a tea, but also powdered as a food additive. It has also been used as a flavor component for some major food products and face powders.

Cornsilk is sweet and easy to chew. In Mexico the silky filaments just inside the husk are sold in bulk as good food and safe medicine for renal problems in both adults and children.

Cornsilk is effective either fresh or dried. Laboratory analysis reveals high amounts of silicon, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron and phosphorus. It is also an excellent source of B vitamins and PABA. Along with chlorophyll, resin and a fixed oil, maizenic acid is the active principle in cornsilk. Vitamin K is used by the body's mechanism that controls bleeding.

Grieve's classic 'A Modern Herbal': 'A mild stimulant, diuretic and demulcent, useful in acute and chronic cystitis and in the bladder irritation of uric acid and phosphatic gravel...'

King's 1898 Dispensatory: 'Corn-silk is diuretic and slightly anodyne, and, for the former purpose, has been found useful in many urinary troubles, associated with renal and cardiac disorders. In southern France, the inhabitants use it as a domestic remedy for calculi, gravel, and strangury. It has been found of value by physicians in the treatment of cystic irritation, due to phosphatic and uric acid concretions, and in both acute and chronic inflammations of the bladder.'

Eclectic Materia Medica, 1922 (Felter): 'Zea (Stigmata Maydis) is diuretic, slightly anodyne, and is said to exert a stimulant effect upon the heart and blood vessels. The infusion, the best preparation, is an efficient stimulating diuretic in urinary irritation and inflammation, pyelitis, and catarrh of the bladder. It is especially valued when the urine contains phosphatic and uric acid concretions, and there is a disposition to dropsical accumulations. Its action is quite positive in pyelitis, chronic cystitis and to relieve ardor urinae in gonorrhea.'

'For the bladder affections of children it is one of the most valued of urinary sedatives, and may be freely administered where there is a disposition to decomposition of the urine while still in the bladder. The virtues are attributed mostly to the maizenic acid present.'