Of all the cereals the first that is sown is barley. We shall state the appropriate time for sowing each kind when we come to treat of the nature of each individually. In India, there is both a cultivated and a wild138 barley, from which they make excellent bread, as well as alica.139 But the most favourite food of all there is rice,140 from which they prepare a ptisan141 similar to that made from barley in other parts of the world. The leaves of rice are fleshy,142 very like those of the leek, but broader; the stem is a cubit in height, the blossom purple, and the root globular, like a pearl in shape.143