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USEFUL PLANTS OF JAPAN
DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
CEREALS & LEQUMINOUS PLANTS.
The agricultural products included under this general name
consist of the most indispensable articles of human food. These
grains are used as our daily food or to brew sake (rice-beer) or
shQyR (soy). The straw is used for the manufacture of various
articles or to feed cattle. The young pods of beans and young
shoots of buck-wheet, etc. are consumed as culinary vegetables.
1. Oryza sativa, L.. aquatica, Common or Paddy rice,
Jap. Koine, Uruchi ; an annual cereal grass cultivated in paddy
or marshy ground. There exist several kinds of rice, but only
three kinds are usually distinguished, early, middle, and late.
The grains hulled, pounded, and boiled play an important role in
the Japanese alimentation as meal and porridge, or are used in the
preparation of rice ferment, sake, and vinegar. Dango (dumpling)*
and sembci (a kind of cracknell) are made from the flour. The
boiled rice
dried makes what the Japanese
call Jioshii and is eaten
grilled. Starch is also obtained from the rice, and the paste is
made by boiling ttie flour. Besides these, rice hulls and straw
serve for different uses ; especially the straw is used for paper
m: iking and other manufactures.
2. Oryza montana, Lour., Upland rice, Jap. Okabo ;
an annual cereal of the order Gramineae, cultivated in ordinary
dry land. Two kinds exist, common and glutinous
quality, shape, as well as use are like the paddy r.'oj.
rice. The