The grass is not grown for its grain, as are other wild rice species, but for the stems, which swell into juicy galls when infected with the smut.

The galled stems are harvested as a vegetable called gau-soon and kal-peh-soon[5] (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: kha-pe̍h-sún;[6] also, gau sun and kah peh sung)[2] and jiaobai in China.

[4] When the fungus invades the host plant it causes it to hypertrophy, its cells increasing in size and number.

[4] If conditions such as temperature are off, the stem becomes filled with dark-colored, sand-like fungal spores instead of swelling into a vegetable, ruining the crop.

They serve as pigment in Japanese lacquerware, where their brownish color produces a rusty tone to the work.

There is a case report of a lacquerware artist who developed hypersensitivity pneumonitis after dusting her work with the spores and then blowing off the excess.

[11] Despite quarantines, a small plot of smut-infested Z. latifolia was discovered growing near Modesto, California, in 1991, and it was destroyed to prevent its spread.