172 PASTORAL AND AGRICULTURAL BOTANY 



rye. The ten-year (1907-1916) average yields in bushels per acre of rye 

 for several of the southeastern United States have been as follows: Ten- 

 nessee, 11.3; North Carolina, 9.9; Alabama, 11.2; Georgia, 9.3 and South 

 Carolina, 10.1. 



Rice (Oryza saliva). This aquatic, or marsh grass is annual in habit 

 and best adapted to growth under aquatic, marsh, or very wet soil condi- 

 tions. There are upland varieties, but the lowland type is the one most 

 generally grown in this country and abroad. Its roots are fibrous with the 

 possible production of adventitious roots by the first, second and third 

 nodes. Tillers are formed freely with the production of four, or five, 

 hollow stems growing to a height of two to six feet. The leaf sheaths are 

 split and the blades are from eight to twelve inches long and % to i inch 

 wide. The ligule is long and easily splits into two parts. The auricle is 

 green, or white, and hairy. 



The inflorescence is a panicle of spikelets. The spikelet is compressed 

 laterally and has two scale-like, or bristle-like glumes with a small, minute, 

 accessory glume beneath each. The lemma is compressed, membrane- 

 ous and five-nerved. The palet is similar in size and texture. Awns may 

 be absent, or present, on both lemma and palet. The lodicules are small, 

 thick and fleshy. There are six functional stamens in each rice flower. 

 The ovary is somewhat longer than broad, smooth and bears two styles 

 and occasionally a rudimentary, third style. Self pollination is the rule 

 with rice. The tip flowers of the spike open first. The rice caryopsis is 

 inclosed by lemma and palet, or by the palet alone. Rice with the hull 

 is known as paddy. Commercially "cleaned rice" is the hullless grain. 

 Polished rice has recently come into prominence, because it has been 

 found that individuals and persons feeding on an almost exclusive rice 

 diet, as in India and the Philippines, suffer from a disease known as beri- 

 beri. It has been recently discovered that beri-beri is a disease of mal- 

 nutrition due to the absence of phosphates which reside in the surface of 

 the rice kernel. A change of diet from polished rice to unpolished removes 

 the cause of the disease. 



Distribution and Soils. Rice is the great food crop of the Chinese, 

 Hindoos, Japanese and races of the Philippine islands and a grain of high 

 quality has been produced in these regions. It is raised in northern Italy and 

 in the southern United States outside of the great rice-producing countries. 

 The bulk of the crop in the United States is raised in Louisiana and Texas. 

 There is considerable acreage to rice in South Carolina and Georgia. 



