WILD PROTOTYPES OF WHEAT AND OTHER CEREALS. 37 



History, Origin, and Fatherland of the Cereals, Particularly Wheat 

 and Barley." These scholars seem to have been the first to realize 

 that scientific study was necessary to the solution of the problem and 

 that historic and linguistic data could not be accepted if at variance 

 with the botanical and geographical knowledge of their own time. 



These men did excellent work, having a definite understanding of 

 the question and using exact scientific methods. But, as Dureau de 

 la Malle himself said, they could only set forth the probable facts in 

 the case. In order to have positive proof they would have had to 

 present wild individuals of every species under discussion and to 

 prove that they really were wild. 



Now, this seemed to be impossible, at least in regard to wheat ; for 

 it and the other cereals " do not perpetuate themselves in a wild state 

 when they escape from cultivation." The Count of Solms-Laubach 

 ten years ago a declared that the genealogical record of wheat had 

 disappeared forever and that its life history could be rewritten only 

 by hypothesis. Although we knew congenerous wild species of bar- 

 ley, rye, and oats that might reasonably be considered as the proto- 

 types of the cultivated species, we knew of no such wild species of 

 wheat. It had been generally admitted that Hordeum spontanetim 

 (H. ithaburense) was the wild form of H. distichon, or two-rowed 

 barley, and that H. vulgare, the common six-rowed square-headed 

 barley, and H. hexastichon, the true six-rowed barley, w T ere derived 

 from this species. Secale montanum, likewise, w 7 as considered the 

 prototype of cultivated rye {Secale cereale) and Avena fatua or 

 some other wild Avena the progenitor of cultivated oats. But no 

 one knew anything about the original wild form of wheat. 



At one time, about the middle of the nineteenth century, it was 

 thought that this much sought for wild form had been found in the 

 neighborhood of Montpellier, France. It was then that the so-called 

 Aegilops triticoides was first found in a wild state. It was later pro- 

 duced artificially by crossing Trlticum ovatum {Aegilops ovatd) and 

 Triticum aestivum (in this case Touzelle wheat). But the researches 

 and memorable publications of Fabre, Godron, Jordan, and others 

 proved that this was not the desired prototype, and the assumption 

 that the cultivated wheats were derived from Aegilops has long ago 

 been abandoned by botanists. It is therefore to be regretted that it 

 has recently been reprinted by certain agronomists in their treatises 

 on the cereals. 



DISCOVERY OF WILD EMMER, AND KORNICKE's THEORY REGARDING IT. 



Although, as we have seen, almost all botanists agreed with Solms- 

 Laubach when he declared that the prototype of wheat could never 



Weizen und Tulpe und deren Geschichte. 1899. 

 180 



