This Decorative Faux Popcorn Garland is 9 feet long, it looks good enough to eat but is merely for decorations. The buttery Popcorn Decorated Country Holiday Garland strand is about .5 inches to .75 wide. This is the perfect Popcorn Garland to give your tree that old fashioned look and feel. How Popcorn Pops: Popping corn is a type of corn which explodes from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Special varieties of are grown to give improved popping yield. Some wild types will pop, but the cultivated strain is Zea mays averta, which is a special kind of flint corn. The process of making Popcorn was first discovered by Native Americans thousands of years ago. Each kernel contains a certain amount of moisture and oil. Unlike most other grains, the outer hull of the kernel is both strong and impervious to moisture and the starch inside consists almost entirely of a hard, dense type. As the oil and the water are heated past the boiling point, they turn the moisture in the kernel into a superheated pressurized steam, contained within the moisture proof hull. Under these conditions, the starch inside the kernel gelatinizes, softens and becomes pliable. The pressure continues to increase until the breaking point of the hull is reached. The hull ruptures rapidly, causing a sudden drop in pressure inside the kernel and a corresponding rapid expansion of the steam, which expands the starch and proteins of the endosperm into airy foam. As the foam rapidly cools, the starch and protein polymers set to form the familiar crispy Popcorn puff.