Wild Rice

Wild Rice (Zizania) - A small group of hardy grasses, excellent for planting in water, or in wet ground at the waterside. Z. aquatica is remarkable for the fine effect of its Oat-like stems, 8 to 10 feet high, with broad vivid-green leaves and graceful bronzed plumes of nearly a yard long, the seeds of which are greedily sought by fish and water-fowl. The plants thrive only in water with a soft mud bottom, and though they will often sow themselves, the seeds are so tempting that the safer way is to keep a store of them in a bottle of water through the winter, planting the seedlings in shallow water during June. The plant is of annual duration, and the seeds perish if kept dry. N. America.

Z. latifolia, from Japan, is a perennial kind, shorter and of more drooping habit. It makes spreading tufts of a good size, but does not bear its purplish plumes freely in this country.

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