CEREALIA, or CE'RRAL GRASSES, so named from Ceres (q.v.), are the plants which produce grain or corn; in other words, all the species of grass (graminea) cultivated for the sake of their seed as an article of food. They are also called corn-plants or bread plants. They do not belong to any particular tribes of the great order of tile limits of that order. The seeds of the grasses in general being indeed farinaceous and whole some, the employment of particular species as bread-plants seems to have been deter mined chiefly by the superior size of the seed, or by .the facility of procuring it in suffi cient quantity, and of freeing it from its unedible envelopes. Some of the grains, as wheat and barley, are produced in ears or close-set spikes; some, as a few of those called millet, in spike-fike panicles; others, as oats and rice, in very loose panicles. The form and size of the grains vary not a little, some being roundish, and some elongated; maize is the largest; many 'of the inflicts are very small. The plants themselves vary in size almost as much as their seeds, the millets being the smallest, and maize the largest of ordinary corn-plants.—Buckwheat and spurry are sometimes ranked with the C., but incorrectly, if the term is regarded as having any botanical limits, for they are not grasses; but their seeds are used in the same way. The quinoa of South America, and the kiery (amaranthus) of India, with other plants of different orders, might be added to the list on the same account; even the lotus of the Nile, the Victoria regia, and other species of water-lilies might thus be reckoned as cereal plants. The most extensively cultivated grains are wheat (triticum), barley (hordeum), rye (secale), oats (arena), rice (oryza), maize or Indian corn (zea), different kinds of millet (setaria, panicum, paspalunz, pennisetum, and penicillaria), and durra or Guinea corn (sorghum or andropogon). These
have all been cultivated from time immemorial, and there is great uncertainty as to the number of species to which the many existing varieties belong; their original forms and native countries cannot confidently be determined. Barley, oats, and rye are the grains of the coldest regions, the cultivation of the two former extending even within the arctic circle. Wheat is next to these, and in the warmer regions of the temperate zone its cultivation Is associated with that of maize and rice, which are extensively cultivated within the tropics. The millets belong to warm climates, and durra is tropical or sub tropical. Rice is the food of a greater number of the human race than any other kind of grain. Maize has the greatest range of temperature.—Besides these, other grasses are cultivated to some extent, in different parts of the world, for the grain they yield: a species of eleusine (wand) in India, and another (tocusso) in Abyssinia; a species of pea (teff) in Abyssinia, and a species of mix (Job's tears) in India. Canary grass (phalaris) may also be named. Canadian rice (zizania) is used as a grain, but is scarcely cultivated, and the same remark applies to the manna grass (glyceria) of the n. of Europe, to some species of bamboo (bambusa), and to the sea lymo grass (etyma), which affords an esteemed article of food, in small quantity, to the inhabitants of Iceland.
Of all the C., wheat is by common consent admitted to be that of which the grain is best fitted for the making of bread, although others are to some extent employed for this purpose. But some, as rice and maize, are scarcely suited for it, and other methods are chiefly employed of preparing them for food. All the grains are also used to pro duce some kind of fermented liquor or beer, and spirituous liquors are obtained from them by distillation.