Coix lacryma-jobi is a tropical grass native to Southeast Asia, where varieties with softer seed coatings have been cultivated as cereal crops and used in folk medicine for centuries. Carl Linnaeus gave it the name lacryma-jobi, meaning tear of Job, in reference to the hard, bead-like pseudocarps that enclose the seeds — grey-white, lustrous, and shaped exactly like a teardrop. Among the Cherokee Nation and Eastern Band of Cherokee, those beads have long been incorporated into personal attire. The plant has naturalized across much of the southeastern United States, finding its footing in the same wet ditches and moist bottomlands it favors in its native range.

Grown as an annual in most of North America, it reaches 3 to 4 feet by fall when the seed heads ripen, and it handles moist to wet soils that would stall many other ornamental grasses. Full sun to part shade suits it; consistent moisture is more important than soil quality. The fall seed heads are the main event, and they dry well for arrangements. In warmer zones (8 through 11) it may persist as a perennial, self-seeding freely in favorable conditions.