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Oryza sativa
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Monocots
(unranked): Commelinids
Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Subfamily: Ehrhartoideae
Tribe: Oryzeae
Genus: Oryza
Type species
Oryza sativa
  • Padia Moritzi
  • Porteresia Tateoka
  • Indoryza A.N.Henry & B.Roy

Oryza is a genus of plants in the grass family.[3][4] It includes the major food crop rice (species Oryza sativa and Oryza glaberrima). Members of the genus grow as tall, wetland grasses, growing to 1–2 m tall; the genus includes both annual and perennial species.[5]

Oryza is situated in tribe Oryzeae, which is characterized morphologically by its single-flowered spikelets whose glumes are almost completely suppressed. In Oryza, two sterile lemma simulate glumes. The tribe Oryzeae is in subfamily Ehrhartoideae,[6] a group of Poaceae tribes with certain features of internal leaf anatomy in common. The most distinctive leaf characteristics of this subfamily are the arm cells and fusoid cells found in their leaves.[7][verification needed]



Over 300 names have been proposed for species, subspecies, and other infraspecific taxa within the genus. Published sources disagree as to how many of these should be recognized as distinct species. The following follows the World Checklist maintained by Kew Garden in London.[2]

  1. Oryza australiensis - Australia
  2. Oryza barthii - tropical Africa
  3. Oryza brachyantha - tropical Africa
  4. Oryza coarctata - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar
  5. Oryza eichingeri - tropical Africa, Sri Lanka
  6. Oryza glaberrima - tropical Africa
  7. Oryza grandiglumis - Brazil, Venezuela, Fr Guiana, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia
  8. Oryza latifolia - Latin America + West Indies from Sinaloa + Cuba to Argentina
  9. Oryza longiglumis - New Guinea
  10. Oryza longistaminata - Madagascar, tropical + southern Africa
  11. Oryza meyeriana - China, Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia
  12. Oryza minuta - Himalayas, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Northern Territory of Australia
  13. Oryza neocaledonica - New Caldeonia
  14. Oryza officinalis - China, Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia
  15. Oryza punctata - Madagascar, tropical + southern Africa
  16. Oryza ridleyi - Southeast Asia, New Guinea
  17. Oryza rufipogon - brownbeard or red rice - China, Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia
  18. Oryza sativa - Asian rice - China; naturalized many places
  19. Oryza schlechteri - New Guinea
formerly included[2]

many species now regarded as better suited to other genera: Echinochloa Leersia Maltebrunia Potamophila Prosphytochloa Rhynchoryza

See also[edit]


  1. ^ lectotype designated by Duistermaat, Blumea 32: 174 (1987)
  3. ^ Linnaeus, Carl von. 1753. Species Plantarum 1: 333. in Latin
  4. ^ Tropicos, Oryza L.
  5. ^ Flora of China Vol. 22 Page 182 稻属 dao shu Oryza Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 333. 1753.
  6. ^ Kellogg, Elizabeth A. (30 January 2009). "The Evolutionary History of Ehrhartoideae, Oryzeae, and Oryza". Rice 2: 1–14. doi:10.1007/s12284-009-9022-2. Retrieved 6 July 2013. 
  7. ^ Heywood, V.H. Flowering Plants of the World 1993 Oxford University Press