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Job's-tears

Habit Plants annual or perennial.
Culms

to 3 m. Leaves mostly cauline, evidently distichous;

blades to 75 cm long, 1.5-6 cm wide.

Involucres

usually 8-12 mm, varying in color.

Lower glumes

of functional pistillate spikelets 6-10 mm, hyaline below, 5-7-veined, with a 1-3 mm coriaceous beak.

Staminate

rames 10-35 mm, with 3-25 spikelet pairs, disarticulating at maturity;

spikelets 5-9 mm, dorsally compressed;

glumes exceeding the florets, with 15+ veins;

lower glumes elliptic to obovate, somewhat asymmetrical, margins folded inward, apices obtuse;

upper glumes lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, keels often winged, apices acute;

upper lemmas 5-8 mm, hyaline, elliptic to ovate, 3-veined;

upper paleas similar but 2-veined;

anthers 3-6 mm.

2n

= 20.

Coix lacryma-jobi

Distribution
from USDA
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Coix lacryma-jobi is a tall, maize-like plant. In North America, it is usually grown as an ornamental, but it has become established at scattered locations in the Flora region. The involucres, which can be used as beads, may be white, blue, pink, straw, gray, brown, or black, with the color being distributed evenly, irregularly, or in stripes. Cultivars with easily removed involucres are grown for food and beverage, especially in Asia.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 25, p. 704.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Andropogoneae > Coix
Name authority unknown
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