A GRAIN OF WHEAT 37 



This brings us to the main issue of the question which I wish to 

 study with you. 



About 1902 two German botanists, well known in Geneva, Ascherson 

 and Schweinfurth, called the attention of a young agronomist, Mr. 

 Aaron Aaronsohn, who was destined in later years to become director 

 of the Haifa Agricultural Station in Palestine, to the scientific and his- 

 toric interest of determining the truth of a suggestion made by Kotschy. 

 This collector brought back from Syria a fragment of a wild plant 

 which Kornicke, an authority on cereals, recognized as a form of Triti- 

 cum dicoccum and which he made a variety under the name of T. 

 dicoccum dicoccoides. 



From this mere indication Kornicke drew the same conclusions as 

 those A. de Candolle had reached by another road, i. e., that wheat 

 must be indigenous to Syria. In the course of a geognostic expedition 

 in Upper Galilee to the north of Lake Tiberias, Mr. Aaronsohn gave 

 his attention to this question, although he was very dubious about being 

 able to answer it. 



As a matter of fact, modern botanists who have studied the flora 

 of Syria, such as Dr. Post, have not confirmed Kotschy's doubtful 

 indication. On the first expedition Mr. Aaronsohn found nothing, but 

 urged by his friends in Berlin he went to this same region again, and 

 this time his efforts were crowned with success. In June, 1906, being 

 at the north of Lake Tiberias at Rosh Pinah, he found a single speci- 

 men of the wild emmer (Triticum dicoccum dicoccoides) growing 

 in a rocky fissure. Complete success came, however, only on leaving 

 Easheya, where wild wheat abounded in uncultivated ground. Having 

 climbed Mt. Hermon, he descended on the opposite side, and towards 

 the village of Amy wild wheat was also very common and showed 

 here an extraordinary variety of forms; black glumes or only partly 

 black, black or colorless heads, smooth or hirsute glumes, glumes some- 

 times resembling those of Triticum monococcum (einkorn) or Trit- 

 icum durum (hard wheat), heads of the type of T. polonicum, etc. 

 Among these plants there was also the wild einkorn (T. monococcum 

 cegilipoides. This excessive variation, the abundance of these plants, 

 their distribution on the slopes of Mt. Hermon from an altitude of 

 1,500-2,000 m., all show that the plant is certainly indigenous. 

 It is a known fact that our cereals do not spread beyond cultiva- 

 tion in any country and that however extended their cultivation may 

 be they never become subspontaneous. In order to establish itself 

 in any locality a plant must hold its own against competitors which, 

 masters of the soil from time immemorial, have been selected to fit the 

 soil and climate. Moreover, emmer is not cultivated anywhere in 

 Palestine. This wild wheat is furthermore a different plant from any 

 known in cultivation, a polymorphous race, no doubt, but a distinct 



