The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Oryza glaberrima
Also called Rice
African rice is a domesticated grain grass grown as an annual crop in West Africa, valued for its hardiness, pest resistance and nutty flavour. It is grown as a crop rather than as an ornamental, and needs a warm, seasonally wet climate.
Oryza glaberrima, commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species.
The species was first domesticated and grown in West Africa around 3,000 years ago. In agriculture, it makes up an estimated 20% of rice grown commercially in West Africa, having largely been replaced by higher-yielding O. sativa (Asian rice). The number of O. glaberrima varieties grown is declining. Crossbreeding African and Asian rice is difficult, but there exist some crosses.
In agriculture, O. glaberrima makes up an estimated 20% of rice grown commercially in West Africa, having largely been replaced by the other domesticated species, higher-yielding O. sativa (Asian rice). The number of O. glaberrima varieties grown is declining. African rice is comparatively hardy, pest-resistant, low-labour, and suited to a larger variety of African conditions.
Overall, O. glaberrima is considered a much more desirable and healthier choice in places like Nigeria by West African farmers, where it is used to make Ofada rice because of its high nutrition content, despite being less popular than O. sativa cultivars (as of 2019).
Native range is: Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Chad, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo; subsequently introduced into: China, Hainan, Indian Subcontinent/West Himalaya.
Multiple varieties of African rice are often grown so that the harvest is staggered. In this way, the harvest can be eaten fresh. Freshly harvested rice is moist, and can be puffed in fire, and eaten. Fried rice has a brownish color when fried; this is because of the husk which is green in color and turns brown when heated.
Barth's rice · Oryza coarctata · Oryza eichingeri · Broadleaf rice · Longstamen rice · Brownbeard rice · Rice · Rice
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Oryza glaberrima by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
