Job's Tears

Coix

The coix ( Coix lacryma - jobi ), also Hiobstränengras, is a tall-growing tropical cereal plant of the family Poaceae, native to East Asia and the Malay Peninsula, but also in other areas such as the southern United States and tropical South and Central America is cultivated.

Features

The coix is an annual plant, the fixed blades stand upright, are 1 to 3 feet high, branched and have more than ten nodes present on. The leaves are stalked, smooth leaf sheaths shorter than the internodes. The smooth, tapered, linear - lanceolate leaf blades are 10 to 40 centimeters long and 1.5 to 7 centimeters wide, the midrib is thickened, the leaf base nearly rounded or cordate, margins rough, the ligule 0.6 to 1.2 millimeters long.

The plant forms several achselbürtige panicles, which are 1.5 to 4 inches long. At the base of the panicle is a single female flower. It is enclosed by the bract of the inflorescence and forms a tube ( utricle ). This hardens the fruit ripening. He is ovoid to cylindrical, usually hard, glossy, 7-11 mm long and 6-10 mm wide, white, bluish or gray - brown. Sometimes the tube has a terminal beak. About the female flower are purely male spikelets. These are in pairs, the threesome terminal. The spikelets are oblong - round to ovoid and 6-9 millimeters long. The glume are much more annoying, the lower glume is keeled and winged, the wings are 0.4 to 0.8 millimeters wide. The wing margin is ciliate. The anthers are 4-5 mm long.

The chromosome number is 2n = 20

Dissemination

The species grows wild on the banks, in marshy valleys and moist areas in large parts of Asia, from China and Taiwan, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam to New Guinea.

Use

The false fruits are used as beads in necklaces and rosaries, the plant as a forage grass. From thin -skinned varieties flour is in East Asia and Africa gained, which contains about 50 percent starch, 14 percent protein and 6 per cent fat, and is suitable for baking bread.

Diseases

The coix is infected by the rust fungus Puccinia operta.

Swell

• Wolfgang Franke: Crop Science. Useful plants of the temperate, subtropical, and tropical. 4th edition, Thieme, Stuttgart 1989. ISBN 3-13-530404-3
• Flora of China, Vol 22, pp. 648-649, online