Job's tears, also known as adlay or adlay millet, is a tall grain-bearing perennial tropical plant of the family Poaceae. It is native to Southeast Asia and introduced to Northern China and India in remote antiquity, and elsewhere cultivated in gardens as an annual. It has been naturalized in the southern United States and the New World tropics. In its native environment it is grown at higher elevation areas where rice and corn do not grow well. Job's tears are also commonly sold as Chinese pearl barley, though true barley belongs to a completely different genus.
Job's tears
Job's Tears used to create natural healing remedies
An unripened head of Job's Tears
C. lacryma-jobi plant with flowers and fruit in Nepal
Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and pasture. The latter are commonly referred to collectively as grass.
Poaceae
Grass flowers
Drawing of Anomochloa marantoidea, one of the most primitive living grass species
Setaria verticillata from Panicoideae