Cerealia, or CEREAL GRASSES, so named from Ceres (q.v.), are the plants which produce grain or corn; in strictness, all the species of grasses (Gramineae) cultivated for the sake of their seed as an article of food. They are also called Corn-plants or Bread-plants; but in this wide popular sense the term cereal ceases to have any botanical limits, and includes plants of wholly distinct orders, notably Buckwheat (natural order, Polygonaceæ), and Quinoa (Chenopodiaceæ), &c. ; even the Lots of the Nile, the Victoria regia, and other species of water-lilies might thus be added to the list.
The cereals proper do not belong to any particular tribe of the great order of grasses, but the employment of particular species as bread-plants seems to have been determined chiefly by the superior size of the seed, or by the facility of procuring it in sufficient quantity, and of freeing it from its inedible envelopes. The most extensively cultivated grains are Wheat (Triticum), Barley (Hordeum), Rye (Secale), Oats (Avena), Rice (Oryza), Maize or Indian Corn (Zea), different kinds of Millet (Setaria, Panicum, Paspalum, 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 often cannot confidently be determined. Barley, oats, and rye are the grains of the coldest regions, the cultivation of the former two 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. See CORN, BARLEY, MAIZE, MILLET, RICE, WHEAT, and other separate articles.