| Monocotyledon | Literature for Coix lacryma-jobi
Wagner et al. 1990, 1999; Lorence & Wagner, 2019. |
| Poaceae -- The Grass Family | Bibliography |
| Coix lacryma-jobi | |
Common name(s): Job's tears, `ohe`ohe, kukaekolea, pu`ohe`ohe, pupu kolea |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Native to Asia, naturalized throughout the tropics.In the Hawaiian Islands, naturalized on Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Maui, Hawai`i. | |
| Habit |
Robust annual; culms 100-300 cm tall, many-branched. |
|
| Leaves |
Leaves with loose sheath, terete, striate, glabrous; ligule membranous, 1.5‒2 mm long, margin erose and minutely fringed; blade 10‒50
cm long, 1.5‒7 cm wide, glabrous, but
rather coarse. |
|
| Flowers |
Inflorescences numerous, terminal and axillary, each consisting of separate pistillate and staminate racemes,
utricles borne on long stout peduncle from axis of distal leaves, white, gray or bluish, bony, lustrous, globose-ovoid, 7‒11 mm long. Distal pistillate floret fertile, lemma scalelike, 3‒5-veined; palea reduced
to a small scale; staminodia 3; staminate raceme 3‒5 cm long, spikelets 7‒11 mm long, glumes equal to the spikelet in length, coriaceous-membranous, broadly lanceolate, glabrous, smooth, lemma membranous, lanceolate, 3-veined, glabrous, palea similar in shape and texture to lemma, 2-veined. |
|
| Fruit |
Caryopses orbicular, ventrally furrowed, enclosed in the hard,shiny, white to dark gray, broadly ellipsoid to subglobose utricle 7‒11 mm long, 6‒10 mm in diameter. |
|
| Chromosomes |
2n = 10, 20 |
|
| Contributor |
Warren Wagner |
