116 



RICE. MAIZE. SUGAR-CANE. 



54. Rice Ory'za* also has flowers arranged in a panicle, but 

 the spikelets are uniflorous ; it is an annual plant, and delights 

 most in low humid situations, and even in inundated places ; its 

 culm rises three or four feet high, and its leaves are very long. 

 It is originally from India : it is cultivated in Italy, but Asia, 

 Africa and America furnish most; Carolina rice is considered 

 amongst the very best ; it constitutes the principal article of diet 

 of all the nations of the East. 



55. Maize, or Indian Corn Zea (from the Greek, zed, I 

 live) is also an herbaceous annual grass ; its fibrous roots give 

 rise to one or more stems five or six feet high, the summit of which 

 bears a panicle nearly a foot long, formed of male flowers in great 

 numbers on several spikes ; the female flowers are very nume- 

 rous, sessile, attached upon a common axis in the axil of the su- 

 perior leaves. The grains are round- 

 ed, of the size of a common pea, 

 ordinarily of a yellow colour, com- 

 pressed one against the other, and ar- 

 ranged longitudinally in six or eight 

 rows. This plant is originally from 

 America ; but was long ago intro- 

 duced into Europe, and is cultivated 

 in all the south of France, Spain and 

 Italy, and is used as food both for 

 men and many domestic animals. 



56. Sugar-cane $>accharum\ 

 (Jig. 139) also belongs to the fami- 

 ly of Grami'nese; its white, silky 

 flowers, all of which are hermaphro- 

 dite, are arranged in fasciculated 

 spikes, with two flowers at each arti- 

 culation ; its stem, which is fror/ 

 eight to twelve feet high, is full ol 

 sweet juice, which, being compressed 

 and evaporated by boiling, yields su- 

 gar. It grows in the East and West 

 Indies, United States, South America, 

 Fig. 139. SUGAR-CANE. and South Sea Islands. 



* ORY'ZA. From the Arabic word eruz, the Greeks coined their word 

 trvza, and the various modern nations of Europe, their rice, riz, rets, 

 arroz, &c. 



t SACCHARUM. From its Arabic name soukar, from which the Greeks 



54. What are the general characters of the rice plant? 



55. What are the characters of Indian corn? 



56. What are the characters of sugar-cane ? How is sugar made' How 

 is sugar-candy prepared ? What is rock-candy ? What is barley-sugar } 

 What is rum ? 



