On 2008-02-11 03:01, Rick McCallister wrote:
> I've never seen rye, so I don't know if it looks like
> rice or not or if the plant does. Curiously, wheat and
> dryland rice plants do look a lot alike.
I see a lot of rye here in Poland (the world's second largest rye
producer). It looks rather similar to wheat and barley, while none of
the three resembles the rice plant very much. When viewed from a
distance on a sunny day, the difference between a field of rye and one
of wheat is that the former looks distinctly silvery-whitish, and the
latter golden, which makes me think that a 'shining white' colour term
like *bHr.h1g^o- might be apt enough as a description of rye.
Piotr