REDISCOVERY OF WILD EMMER IN PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 43 



to demonstrate to him the Eocene origin of the ground. Suddenly I 

 noticed in a crevice of a rock of nummulitic limestone an isolated 

 plant which at first sight looked like a stool of barley, but which on 

 closer inspection proved to be a wheat, the ripe spikelets of which 

 could be detached from the brittle rachis by the slightest shake. I 

 could hardly believe that it was really the plant for which I was look- 

 ing. The development of the head and grains was so perfect — so 

 nearly like the forms produced under cultivation at the presen f day — 

 that I could scarcely believe that this was their wild prototype, 

 though, to be sure, if it had not been so well developed primitive man 

 would not have noticed it, or at least would not have appreciated the 

 importance of its cultivation to such an extent as he did. 



I could not at that time remain longer at Kosh Pinar, and so left 

 the next day for the north. On the way from Rosh Pinar to Ras- 

 heyya (three days on horseback) I looked for wild wheat, but could 

 not find any. At Rasheyya, too, I spent a great deal of time botaniz- 

 ing in the vineyards in the hope of finding the Triticum there, but also 

 without success. But when I began to extend my search to unculti- 

 vated lands, along the edges of roads and in the crevices of rocks, I 

 found a few stools of the wild Triticum. Later I came across it in 

 great abundance, and the most astonishing thing about it was the large 

 number of forms it displayed. The sample specimen from Rosh 

 Pinar, however, was the finest one. This plant had made a very vig- 

 orous growth and bore heads the stiff, rugose awns (beards) of which 

 were nearly or quite 6 inches long. (See Pis. II, III, and IV.) At 

 the foot of Mount Hermon the stems were longer but fewer. Instead 

 of being 2 feet high, as at Rosh Pinar, this wild wheat at Rasheyya 

 was more than 40 inches high. 



I ascended Mount Hermon and went around to the other side. I 

 intend at some future time to describe this trip, as its botanical and 

 geological results may interest the scientific world; but here I shall 

 speak only of the Triticum. In descending from the summit of 

 Mount Hermon (9,498 feet in altitude) toward Arny, a little village 

 on its eastern slope, I found innumerable forms of this wild Triticum 

 growing in abundance at an altitude of 5,250 feet and less. (See PI. 



V, fig. 1.) In some cases the whole ear was black; in others only the 

 glumes or part of the glumes; in still others the awns alone were 

 black. Sometimes the glumes were completely glabrous (see PL VI, 

 figs. 1 and 2), sometimes very hirsute (see PI. VII, fig. 1) ; in some 

 the form of the glume resembled that of Triticum durum (see PI. 



VI, fig. 2), in others the development of the secondary nerve was 

 similar to that of T. monococcum. (Compare PI. VIII, figs. 1, 2, 

 and 3.) I had discovered so many forms that no attempt at deter- 

 mination could be made. Among these was even T. monococcum 

 aegilipoides (see PI. VII, fig. 2), a form I had not at all expected to 



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