1910] Fernald,— Plants of Wineland the Good 27 
bear the name Hvede. Thus Agropyron (or Triticum) caninum is 
called H unde H vede,! Hundahveiti, and Kjarrhveiti;? and Agropyron 
(or Triticum) violaceum is called Bláhveiti.* These names, however, 
Hunde H vedeand H undahveiti (Dog Wheat), Kjarrhveiti (Cur Wheat), 
and Bléhveiti (Blue Wheat) are evident translations of the botanical 
names, Triticum caninum and T. violaceum; and, like many such 
names in American botanical writings, suggest too strongly a book- 
origin. None of the northern species of Agropyron (or Triticum), 
furthermore, furnish useful grains; and, with the exception of the well 
known garden-weed, Witch-grass or Quick-grass (Agropyron repens), 
they are ordinarily overlooked by any one but the technical botanist. 
Besides the true Wheat (Triticum vulgare), and its immediate allies, 
the wild species of Agropyron (or Triticum) which in technical writ- 
ings of northern botanists are called species of wheat, there is one 
grass which, in Norway and Iceland, is known by the common people 
as Wheat. This is Elymus arenarius, the most conspicuous grass of 
the sea-strands, which has almost innumerable folk-names, among 
them Sftrandhvede? (Strand Wheat), Sandhavre® (Sand Oat), Hvede- 
graes* (Wheat-grass), Havgraes® (Oat-grass), Vild Hvede? (Wild 
Wheat), Melr?, Melgras? (Meal-grass), Melur* and Sandmelgras ? 
(Sand Meal-grass). Magnus Stephensen, as translated by the emi- 
nent British botanist, Sir William Jackson Hooker, tells us that it was 
the plant depended upon by the Icelanders, in the 18th century, for 
their flour. Stephensen, describing the tremendous volcanic eruption, 
which occurred in 1783 in the district of Iceland called Vester-Skapte- 
field's Syssel, says: “The loss sustained in this district by the destruc- 
tion of the ground which used to produce the Sea Lyme-grass (Elymus 
arenarius) is the more deeply felt, since this plant has become an 
article of consequence among the inhabitants. The flour it yields is 
considered to be finer in quality and more nutritive than any which is 
imported; so that, although the drying and preparing of the grain are 
but imperfectly understood in this district, it was nevertheless in so 
1 Blyt, Norges Flora, 164 (1861). 
? Hjaltalin, fslenzk Grasafraedi, 114 (1830). 
3 Stefán Stefánsson, Flóra Islands, 48 (1901). 
1 Stefán Stefánsson, Flóra Islands, 47 (1901). 
5 Gunnerus, Flora Norvegica, pars 1, 73 (1766). 
$ Hornemann, Forsøg til en dansk oekonomisk Plantelaere, 642 (1796). 
7 Grénlund, Islands Flora, 122 (1881). 
8 Stefan Stefánsson, Flóra Islands, 46 (1901). 
9 Hjaltalín, Islenzk Grasafraedi, 113 (1830). 
