This is the story of the Little Corn Plant that Could.

Few of the hundreds of daily motorists probably notice a fully formed corn plant on the Hwy. 43 bridge connecting Winona with Wisconsin. The stalk has been growing, now fully formed, out of some dirt located near a storm drain.

The plant probably came from a seed that fell off one of many trailers hauling grain across the bridge.

Defying odds, the seed landed in a good spot on the bridge and avoided being eaten by birds or rodents.

The dirt and the cracks in the cement gave the plant something for its roots to grab hold of in its bid to push up and grow when it sprouted this year.

A corn plant growing on the bridge is pretty rare, but Ryan Miller of the University of Minnesota Extension said that you can usually find a good number of corn plants growing along the side of the road each year.

“It’s interesting to see that domesticated corn can grow pretty much everywhere,” he said. “A bridge isn’t your typical place to see it growing.”