DESCRIPTIONS OF TRIBES AND GENERA. 



89 



Stamens six ; fruit long, obtuse, closely enveloped by 

 the fruiting glume, and compressed laterally with two 

 lateral furrows ; embryo short, curved. 



About six species, in the tropics of both hemispheres. 

 0. sativa L., Rice, has contracted 

 panicles and rough, prominently 

 five-nerved flowering glumes. Wild 

 in wet places in India and tropical 

 Australia ; one variety in Africa ; 

 naturalized in Brazil. Rice has 

 been cultivated in China from the 

 most ancient times (for over 2800 

 years B.C.), in South Europe, 

 where it was introduced by the 

 Arabs, and in Egypt, since the mid- 

 dle ages (in Central Africa earlier?), 

 in North America since 1700 a.d., 

 and besides in Mexico, Brazil, and 

 Paraguay. It needs stagnant 

 water which readily breeds swamp- 

 fever, and in Europe its culture 

 in the vicinity of villages or ham- 

 lets is forbidden. Mountain- or 

 Upland-rice, which requires only 

 to be irrigated, is much less prized A 

 for economic uses. Rice is used 

 for food by more people than any 

 other one grain. It is generally 

 used in the form of soup or boiled F ia.37.-OryzaSoL. (After 

 rice. " Arak" is made from it by Nees - Gen - Germ • T pL *■> 

 fermentation ; in Japan a light alcoholic drink, " Sake," 

 is made from rice by means of an organic ferment. 

 Gluten rice (" Klebreis"), whose grains stick fast to- 

 gether when cooked, forming a firmly united mass, and 

 whose starch turns reddish brown (see p. 26) instead of 

 blue with iodine, is used in Japan for paste and for mak- 

 ing an elastic dough from which cakes are baked. In 

 China a kind of sugar and a sweet drink are prepared 

 from it. Rice-starch has lately become an article of 

 trade, especially in England. Rice-brooms, rice-paper, 



