MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE WEST INDIES 145 
narrower, keeled, 2-nerved near the margin, apparently no midnerve 
(a thin midnerve seen only in section). Annual or perennial swamp 
grasses with flat blades and spikelets in open or rather dense panicles. 
Plants annual; cultivated and sparingly escaped. Spikelets 8 to 10 mm long. 
O. SATIVA. 
Plants perennial; native species. 
Spikelets about Gammon p22 see ae ee he 2. O. PERENNIS. 
Spikelets:about;ormmulong: ss uaa ee ey ek 3. O. LATIFOLIA. 
1. Oryza sativa L., Sp. Pl. 333. 1753. Africa and India. RIcE. 
Erect annual up to 1 m or more in height; blades flat, as much as 1.5 
cm wide; panicles rather compact, many-flowered, drooping when 
large or heavy with fruit; spikelets oblong, 7 to 10 mm long; glumes 
2 to 3 mm long; Jemma hard, ridged by the lateral nerves, more or 
less hispidulous, the awn variable, several centimeters long or wanting 
(fig. 92). 
Cultivated throughout tropical and warm temperate regions at low 
altitudes; more or less persistent in fields and ditches. 
The native species from which cultivated rice originated is not 
known with certainty. There are wild forms found in India and China 
which appear to be the prototype of rice or a degenerate form arising 
from rice which has gone wild. Such forms differ chiefly in habit, 
the culm often decumbent, widespreading, and rooting at the nodes. 
2. Oryza perennis Moench, Meth. Pl. 197. 1794. 
Perennial; culms erect, 1 to 2 m tall; blades elongate, 7 to 14 mm 
wide; panicle narrow, 15 to 20 cm long, the branches ascending or 
appressed; spikelets about 9 mm long, the tip of lemma and palea 
purple, the awn purplish, 7 to 10 cm long. 
Swamps and wet places, Cuba, Hispaniola, and Brazil. The 
original specimens described by Moench were cultivated in the 
botanical garden at Marburg. 
Cusa: Pinar del Rio, Ekman in 1923; Hitchcock 23275. Without 
locality (probably Pinar del Rio), Wright 3838. Isla de Pinos, 
Ekman 12014. 
Dominican Repusiic: Guerra, Ekman H 13349. 
The author collected this wild rice in Cuba in situations where it 
seemed to be native. Dr. Ekman, who also collected it in Cuba, 
states: 
It is not a weed and has never been found among cultivated rice. It growsin 
pineland swamps far from human dwellings as, for instance, in Ciénaga de Lanier, 
Isla de Pinos, where rice has never been cultivated. It is, I repeat it, absolutely 
out of the question that it could be an escaped form of the cultivated rice. It is, 
moreover, perennial, not annual, as O. sativa. 
3. Oryza latifolia Desv., Jour. Bot. Desv. (II) 1: 77. 1813. Puerto 
Rico. : 
Oryza sativa var. latifolia Doell, in Mart., Fl. Bras. 27: 7. 1871. 
Rather robust perennial; culms 2 m or more tall; blades thin, flat, 
scabrous, commonly 50 to 60 cm long and 4 to 5 cm wide; panicles 
large many-flowered; spikelets about 5 mm long, the erect awn 10 to 
15 mm long, short-pediceled along the upper half to two-thirds of the 
long slender ascending branches. 
Swamps, ditches, and wet places, Guatemala and the West Indies 
to Brazil. The type locality, ‘“Habitat in Carolina, insulaque Por- 
torici”’, is clearly erroneous as to Carolina. The type specimen in the 
