ORYZA 



SATIVA 



Assam and 

 Burma 

 Wild Bice. 



Cultivated 

 Rice. 



Wild Forms. 



Bed-coloured 

 Bices. 



Tank Bice. 



'Double Bices.' 1 



Hill Bice. 



Early and Late 

 Bices. 



Progression of 

 Awned to 

 Awnless. 



D.E.P., 

 v., 512-9. 



THE RICE PLANT 



0. latifolia, Desv., Journ. Bot., 1813, i., 77 ; 0. offiicinalis, Wall. A tall, 

 sparsely branched species with very broad multi-nerved leaves and prof use (almost 

 umbellately) branched panicles : * surface of inner glume composed of parallel 

 bands of squarish corrugations. The area of distribution, from the records of its 

 collection, may be given as from Sikkim and the Khasia hills, Assam (Gowhatty), 

 to Burma (Pegu and Arakan). It is in Akyab known as daung-saba, and in 

 Mergui as natsaba. 



O. sativa, Linn. The Cultivated Rice, dhan, chdval, uri, sdthi, 

 munji, shall, garri, ddngar, bhatta, tandula, arishi, nellu, biyam, akki, saba, 

 etc. Cultivated throughout India, but often met with also wild (or at all 

 events feral) wherever marshy land occurs in tropical regions. The chief 

 area of the Indian wild forms may be given as from Madras and Orissa to 

 Bengal, Chittagong, Arakan and Cochin-China. Roxburgh was so satisfied 

 that the wild stock was the parent of the cultivated that he described 

 it alone, and gave only a few of the chief features of the cultivated forms 

 known to him. Though the task of separating the wild and cultivated 

 states into varieties or races is by no means easy, the wild forms examined 

 by me may be here briefly indicated : 



Var. a rufipogon. This seems to correspond to the plant of that name 

 described by Griffith. No specimen of Griffith's plant is known to exist, but it 

 is probably the source of the red-coloured rices of India. 



Var. /3 fatua ; Prain, Beng. Plants, ii., 1184. This is apparently the plant that I 

 distinguished in the Dictionary as bengatensls. Under this come by far the 

 major portion of the submerged rices. It is the type most commonly spoken of, 

 moreover, as " Wild Bice," being found on the margins of tanks (jhila) or fre- 

 quently deeply submerged fields in Bengal, Madras and Burma. Its most general 

 name is uri or jhara, but from Madras have come samples under the names 

 nirvari or nivaru, and from Burma daung-aaba, daik-saba, nat-saba and pago- 

 shwe-hmal, names often also given to o. intifoitn. Wild rice is met with both 

 bearded and beardless, as also red, white or almost black in colour. In fact, 

 the grains of the wild and cultivated plants cannot be distinguished except per- 

 haps by the cultivators, who in this matter seem to possess an intuitive know- 

 ledge. C. B. Clarke said, " I do not know how, in the young state, the cultivator 

 tells the uri from the aman. I cannot." 



Var. 7 plena. This is given by Prain to include the " Double Rices." A 

 cultivated rice exists in Chittagong with from 2 to 7 ovaries. 



Var. 8 abuensis. Probably the most temperate form of wild o. sntiva as yet 

 collected. It is a much smaller plant than the prevalent wild form (/3), and may 

 be the source of many of the best qualities of awnless chotan aman or rouaa rices 

 of Bengal and of the superior qualities of Upper India, Madras and the hills 

 generally. This is probably the plant of which there was a good deal written 

 some short time ago under the name of " Hill Rice." 



The names thus suggested for the above four forms of wild o. sutivu are purely 

 provisional, since the classification by no means provides a place for all the 

 distinctive forms of the cultivated plant. Roxburgh adopted what is perhaps 

 the most convenient classification of the latter, viz. a system based on their 

 peculiarities of cultivation, the early and the late rices. He specialises sixteen 

 forms. The late rices are the " great crop." Of these, he mentions eight all of 

 which are awnless and afford, when cleaned, white grains. Of early rices, four 

 are awned and yield red or coloured grains : one is awned but yields a white 

 grain, while three are awnless and afford white grains. Of the late rices, four 

 have coloured and four white husks ; of the early, six have coloured husks, two 

 are white or pale. The general conclusion to be drawn from an analysis of 

 Roxburgh's cultivated rices shows that the progression in value is from the 

 awned to the awnless forms, and from the coloured to the colourless. 



History. Writers are agreed that the earliest mention of rice cultivation is 

 connected with China, where, according to Stanislas Julien, a ceremony was 

 established in 2800 B.C. by Emperor Chin-nung, in which the sowing of five kinds 

 of grain, one being rice, is the chief observance. This, together with the well- 

 known adaptability of large portions of China to rice cultivation, led De Candolle 

 to presume the plant may have been a native of that country. He does not, 



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