''Piptatherum holciforme'' is a species of perennial cereal

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

known by the common names rice grass, hairy ricegrass, and hairy millet grass, endemic to Eurasia, especially the

Mediterranean basin In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and w ...

. The seed of the plant is a type of grain

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...

that can be ground into meal and prepared as a

porridge Porridge is a food made by heating or boiling ground, crushed or chopped starchy plants, typically grain, in milk or water. It is often cooked or served with added flavourings such as sugar, honey, (dried) fruit or syrup to make a sweet cereal, ...

Description

''Piptatherum holciforme'' stands erect about 50-80 cm., having dissected leaves branched from its base, growing in clusters of several propagation runners. The stems are

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

, slightly tilting forward because of the weight of the inflorescence, each made up of 3-4

internodes A stem is one of two main structural axes of a vascular plant, the other being the root. It supports leaves, flowers and fruits, transports water and dissolved substances between the roots and the shoots in the xylem and phloem, stores nutrien ...

. The

grains A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legume ...

are borne upon a

panicle A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are of ...

, consisting of

spikelets A spikelet, in botany, describes the typical arrangement of the flowers of grasses, sedges and some other Monocots. Each spikelet has one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes. The part of the spikelet that ...

with a short

caducous Dehiscence is the splitting of a mature plant structure along a built-in line of weakness to release its contents. This is common among fruits, anthers and sporangia. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part; structures that op ...

awn AWN may stand for: * Awn Access to Justice Network in Gaza Strip, Legal Aid Network operate in Gaza Strip, Palestine * Animation World Network, an online organization for animators * Avant Window Navigator, a dock-like bar that tracks open windows ...

; each grain being ovoid in shape, pointed at one end and having a shiny black appearance. Each seedling bears micro-hairs. The seed and the lower chaff that encloses the seed of the Piptatherum holciforme are the largest and longest of all species of Piptatherum that grow in Israel and they reach a length of 1–1.5 cm., without the

(spikelets). The plant's modern taxonomic name was described in 1817 by the Swiss botanist and entomologist

Johann Jacob Roemer Johann Jacob Roemer (8 January 1763, Zurich – 15 January 1819) was a physician and professor of botany in Zurich, Switzerland. He was also an entomologist. With Austrian botanist Joseph August Schultes, he published the 16th edition of Ca ...

(1763-1819) and his colleague, the Austrian botanist,

Josef August Schultes Josef (Joseph) August Schultes (15 April 1773 in Vienna – 21 April 1831 in Landshut) was an Austrian botanist and professor from Vienna. Together with Johann Jacob Roemer (1763–1819), he published the 16th edition of Linnaeus' ''Systema V ...

(1773-1831). The plant was first described several years earlier, in 1808, by the German botanist Friedrich August Freiherr Marschall von Bieberstein (1768-1826) as belonging to the genus ''Agrostis holciformis''. In classical Hebrew literature the plant falls under the generic classification of "

" ( he, דוחן), one of the cereal grasses, and is probably the ''naqlivas'' ( he, נקליבס) mentioned in the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

(''Avodah Zarah'') as once being used by idolaters.

Habitat and distribution

''Piptatherum holciforme'' grows in waste habitats, along waysides, and adapts well in moist, stony chalkstone soils in Mediterranean

scrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, Herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or ...

. Its global distribution extends across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Cultivation

Today, the hairy millet grass has a wide distribution, growing almost exclusively in the wild. To what extent the cereal grass was cultivated in the past by indigenous peoples is now unclear, owing to the multiple varieties of millet and panic.

Ohalo Ohalo II is an archaeological site in Northern Israel, near Kinneret, on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is one of the best preserved hunter-gatherer archaeological sites of the Last Glacial Maximum, radiocarbon dated to around 23,0 ...

, a

paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

hunter-gatherer archaeological site in

Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...

, along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, revealed a storage facility where the grains of hairy millet grass, along with other grains, had been stored. In Israel, seedlings of hairy millet grass are sometimes used to reseed marginal land for pasture.

References

External links

Wild Flowers of Israel. ''Piptatherum holciforme''
*

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

br>Global Plants: ''Piptatherum holciforme''

Phylogenetics of Piptatherum s.l. (Poaceae: Stipeae): Evidence for a new genus, Piptatheropsis, and resurrection of Patis (TAXON, 2011
* {{Authority control Plants described in 1817 Pooideae Grasses of Asia Flora of Israel Flora of Lebanon Flora of Greece Flora of Turkey Cereals Forages

Description

Habitat and distribution

Cultivation

References

Further reading

External links