稻

植物簡介

It is an annual, aquatic, clump-forming grass that grows up to 0.5–2.0 m tall. The leaves are smooth on both sides or slightly rough on the underside. The leaf blades are green, strap-like, held erect but drooping towards the tip and reach 24–60 cm long × 0.6–2.2 cm wide. The leaf margins are rough with short stiff hairs. The leaf sheaths are rolled tightly at the base, forming a pseudostem. The auricles (ear-shaped or triangular lateral extensions at the top of leaf sheaths in grasses) are rarely absent, being minuscule (1–5 mm long × 0.5–1 mm wide), narrowly lance-shaped or sickle-shaped, deciduous and hairy. Ligules (projection at the top of the leaf sheath) are present, being minute (10–36 mm long × 2.5–8 mm wide) and triangular or egg-shaped. The leaves are arranged alternately in two ranks. The inflorescence is a pale green to yellow, pendulous panicle with spikelets. Each spikelet comprises a single fertile floret, each consisting of heavily reduced petals and sepals, six drooping anthers, and two feathery stigmas. The glumes are highly reduced. Fertile lemmas (the two bracts enclosing a grass floret) are present and covered in glassy hairs. Sterile lemmas (the remaining highly reduced, bracts of vestigial florets) are also present at the base of the single floret. The fruit is a yellowish-white to brown-black caryopsis (a type of dry, indehiscent fruit, commonly known as a grain).