Botany · Ch 10 — Economically Useful Plants & Entrepreneurial Botany
Minor Millets
Minor Millets
Beyond the widely grown major millets, several smaller, more locally important millets round out this food group, valued especially for their fibre content and their suitability in dry, marginal farming conditions. Little Millet (Panicum sumatrense) is one of the oldest millets and a native of India — its species name recalls a specimen originally collected from Sumatra — and its higher iron and fibre content relative to rice makes it a favoured grain for managing diabetes; it is cooked like rice or milled and baked, and is traditionally used against anaemia, constipation and other digestive complaints. Foxtail Millet (Setaria italica), domesticated in China roughly 6,000 years ago, is rich in protein, carbohydrate, vitamins B and C, potassium and calcium; it is credited with strengthening the heart and improving eyesight, and its porridge (Thinai porridge) is traditionally given to lactating mothers. Kodo Millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum), originating in West Africa …
What this figure shows. A three-panel photographic plate comparing the grain heads of the three minor millets described in the text. Little Millet shows a slender, compact, narrow panicle with tightly packed small grains. Foxtail Millet shows a dense, cylindrical, bristly nodding spike that visibly resembles a fox's tail, covered in fine bristle-like awns, which is the feature the common name refers to. Kodo Millet shows a set of narrow, finger-like flattened spikes bunched together at the tip of the stalk, distinctly more slender than ragi's fingers. The plate lets a student tell apart the three minor millets' grain-head shapes even tho …