page_title: Wild rice
section_title: Manchurian wild rice
hierarchical_section_title: Wild rice / Use as food / Manchurian wild rice
caption_attribution_description: English: Manchurian wild rice (Zizania latifolia) stems, before and after peeling. From the local market in Chenyu, Yuhuan, Zhejiang province, PR China
context_page_description: Wild rice is four species of grasses forming the genus Zizania, and the grain that can be harvested from them. The grain was historically gathered and eaten in North America and China. While now a delicacy in North America, the grain is eaten less in China, where the plant's stem is used as a vegetable.
  Wild rice is not directly related to Asian rice, whose wild progenitors are O. rufipogon and O. nivara, although they are close cousins, sharing the tribe Oryzeae. Wild-rice grains have a chewy outer sheath with a tender inner grain that has a slightly vegetal taste.
  The plants grow in shallow water in small lakes and slow-flowing streams; often, only the flowering head of wild rice rises above the water. The grain is eaten by dabbling ducks and other aquatic wildlife.
context_section_description: Manchurian wild rice (Chinese: 菰; pinyin: gū), gathered from the wild, was once an important grain in ancient China. It is now very rare in the wild, and its use as a grain has completely disappeared in China, though it continues to be cultivated for its stems.
  The swollen crisp white stems of Manchurian wild rice are grown as a vegetable, popular in East and Southeast Asia. The swelling occurs because of infection with the smut fungus Ustilago esculenta. The fungus prevents the plant from flowering, so the crop is propagated asexually, the infection being passed from mother plant to daughter plant. Harvest must be made between about 120 days and 170 days after planting, after the stem begins to swell, but before the infection reaches its reproductive stage, when the stem will begin to turn black and eventually disintegrate into fungal spores.
  The vegetable is especially common in China, where it is known as gāosǔn (高筍) or jiāobái (茭白). Other names which may be used in English include coba and water bamboo. Importation of the vegetable to the United States is prohibited in order to protect North American species from the smut fungus.
caption: Wild rice stems before and after peeling.
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