WILD PROTOTYPES OF WHEAT AND OTHER CEREALS. 4l 



Triticum monococcum with any other wheat. Later, Beyerinck suc- 

 ceeded in producing the cross, but the products were strict hybrids; 

 that is, they were all sterile. More recently still, Professor von 

 Tschermak, who took up Vilmorin's experiments, met with the same 

 failure. He has succeeded in crossing Triticum monococcum with 

 Triticum ovatum, which, as we have seen, may in turn be crossed 

 with Triticum aestivum; but neither he nor anyone else has suc- 

 ceeded in crossing Triticum monococcum with any other wheat. 



Let us note, however, that in the case of Triticum polonicum there 

 was difficulty in crossing, because of the peculiar form of its glumes, 

 until a particular operative technique had been worked out. In view 

 of this we may question whether the failure with einkorn was not also 

 caused by a faulty technique. We may remark in this connection that, 

 as Doctor Trabut observed, no one has ever succeeded in crossing the 

 two varieties of Anagallis arvensis, caerulea and phoenioia, although 

 the only difference between the two is that the former has blue and 

 the latter pink flowers. But we can not on this account class them as 

 distinct species. 



In so far, therefore, as the lack of sexual affinity between two 

 related forms justifies us in recognizing in them two different species, 

 Triticum monococcum must be considered as standing alone, and it 

 can not be ranked as the progenitor of the cultivated wheats. 



From the historical point of view, also, we may reject einkorn as 

 the progenitor of wheat. Its cultivation can not have gone back to 

 very ancient times, since the cultivated form differs so little from the 

 wild one. The only evidence that we possess of any antiquity is that 

 Schliemann discovered it in his celebrated excavations of ancient 

 Troy, showing that it was cultivated there. But the other cultivated 

 wheats are traced back for thousands of years before this. 



Spelt and emmer, then, are the only two forms remaining to be 

 considered, but we have no ancient remains of the cultivation of 

 spelt, nor is there any mention of it in literature until toward the 

 beginning of the Christian era. 



EMMER THE ONLY POSSIBLE PROTOTYPE OF TRUE WHEAT. 



The species of grain of the cultivation of which w T e have the 

 oldest records is emmer. It is true that durum wheat has been found 

 in Egypt in some tombs of the first dynasty — that is, four thousand 

 years before the Christian era — but emmer is found both in far 

 greater abundance and in all of the tombs. It is not at the present 

 time cultivated anywhere in Egypt, durum wheat having since his- 

 torical times taken its place. 



Bulletin de la Societe Botauique de France, vol. 68, p. 1S2. 

 180 



