Rice (Oryza sativa)

Plant of the month: October


Rice is an annual grass, sometimes growing to 180cm tall and is the most important crop in the world. Some 1.6 billion people are dependent on it as their staple food and it is eaten commonly all around the globe.

For breakfast cereals, the rice grains or seeds are polished, thereby removing the nutritious outer layers. Then ironically, the manufacturers add other vitamins to make it nutritious again! In the wild it is found growing around river and pond edges in Tropical Asia and Africa. It is widely cultivated in manmade controlled flooded fields known as ‘paddy fields’ in China and has been for some 13,500 years.

See ours in seed in our mini paddy field in the Subtropical House now.