Zizania latifolia

Common card · No. 454800

Zizania latifolia, known as Manchurian wild rice (Chinese: 菰; pinyin: gū or 茭; pinyin: jiāo; POJ: kha; Korean: 줄; RR: jul; Japanese: 真菰 or マコモ makomo), is the only member of the wild rice genus Zizania native to Asia. It is used as a food plant; both the stem and grain are edible. Gathered in the wild wetlands, Manchurian wild rice was an important grain in ancient China. Manchurian wild rice is now very rare in the wild, and its use as a grain has completely disappeared in Asia, though it continues to be cultivated for its smut-swelled stems. A measure of its former popularity is that the surname Jiǎng (simplified Chinese: 蒋; traditional Chinese: 蔣), one of the most common in China, derives from this crop.

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