BOTANY Higher Secondary Second Year - Textbooks Online

urinary infections, tuberculosis, meningitis and pneumonia. Aureomycin
is obtained from actinomycetes, Streptomyces aureofaciens. It is used as
a medicine in the osteomyelitis, whooping cough and eye infections.
Chloromycetin is obtained from the actinomycete, Streptomyces
venezuelae. It kills bacillus form of bacteria and cures typhoid fever.
Aspergillus fumigatus produces antibiotic which is used against typhoid
and dysentery. Other group of microorganism like bacteria is also known
to produce many antibiotics. Bacillus subtilis produces 60 different
antibiotics. Bacitracin is an antibiotic obtained from Bacillus licheniformis
and it is used to treat syphilis. It is useful in the control of sugar for
persons suffering from diabetes. Through genetic manipulation, and
introduction of human gene for insulin production, the bacterium E. coli
is articulated to produce human insulin called “humulin”.
6.9. Economic importance
Many plants are economically important and useful to mankind in
several ways. Based on their utility, they are broadly classified as food
plants, fibre plants, oil plants and timber plants. Now, we will discuss
some of the economically important plants for each category.
Food plant – Rice
Its binomial is Oryza sativa. It belongs to Poaceae. It is the most
important cereal of tropical climate. This plant is an annual grass. The
inflorescence is panicle containing a number of branches, each terminating
in a single grain. IR – 8, ponni, kannagi, kavery, ganga, etc. are some of
the recent varieties cultivated in India.
Rice is the chief source of carbohydrates. Polished rice is less nutritive.
Straw is used as livestock feed. In Japan, alcoholic beverages are also
distilled from the grains of rice. Recently, from the husk of paddy, a
cooking (rice bran oil) oil is extracted. Now, bio-diesel is obtained from
rice bran oil.
Rice is the major food of half of the world’s population. Particularly
in the eastern hemisphere it is the staple food. Rice cultivation is the only
source of income for majority of people in our country. The uses of rice
are many.
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