The Morphological Characteristics of Fan-Shaped Phytolith of Rice Based on Large Sample

Bulliform phytoliths plays an important role in researching rice origins. However, its application was limited in the early studies of rice planting culture due to an uncertainty in distinguishing the bulliform phytoliths between wild rice and cultivated rice. Through the investigation and statistical analysis based on the large sample data, the authors found that the size of the bulliform phytoliths of the common wild rice was larger than that of the cultivated rice, and that japonica rice was larger than indica rice; the B/A value of common wild rice was significantly higher than that of cultivated rice while the Japonica rice was significantly lower than that of indica rice; the length （VL） and width （HL） of bulliform phytoliths were positively correlated to each other, and the investigated bulliform phytoliths was mainly distributed in the range of VL < 41 μm & HL < 39 μm and VL > 41 μm & HL >39 μm. In the identification of rice site, if most B/A of the rice bulliform phytoliths was less than or equal to 1.20, it was likely to be japonica rice; if B/A was greater than 1.2, we can distinguish wild rice from indica rice according to the size of bulliform phytoliths, it might be indica rice if most of bulliform phytoliths in the range of VL < 41 μm & HL < 39 μm, or it might be wild rice if that’s in the range of VL > 41 μm & HL > 39 μm.

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