REDISCOVERY OF WILD EMMER IN PALESTINE AND SYRIA. 45 



I discussed this subject with Kornicke. A year before he had 

 said that certain forms which I had labeled T. monococcum were 

 really T. dicoccum dicoccoides, and vice versa: But after a minute 

 study of these forms he took pleasure in acknowledging that my 

 determinations were correct, stating this both in his letter to Pro- 

 fessor Schweinfurth, dated December 31, 1907, and in his letter to 

 me written a few days before his death. 



HABITUAL ASSOCIATION OF WILD EMMER WITH WILD BARLEY. 



Another observation of some importance made by the writer is 

 the following: 



The wild emmer is always found in company with wild barley. 

 The latter has perhaps a greater area than the former and occasion- 

 ally is found where wild emmer does not grow, but it is very un- 

 usual to find the emmer unmixed with the barley. 



Now, it has always been difficult to say whether barley or wheat is 

 the older crop. The oldest writers always speak of these two together, 

 and in excavations in Egypt and elsewhere they are always found 

 associated. Kornicke has asserted that the cultivation of barley is 

 older than that of wheat. But why may we not assume that our 

 prehistoric ancestors began the cultivation of the two cereals si- 

 multaneously and that they grew barley and wheat together just 

 as they are found growing when wild? The habits of these two 

 plants are so similar that the Arabs fail to distinguish them, 

 although they are given to more or less close observation of natural 

 phenomena. Several times I have asked the Arabs to gather for 

 me some stools of wild Triticum like the sample which I gave them. 

 They always brought me back Horde um spontaneum. Nor have I 

 been able to find any special word in their language for wild wheat. 

 They always called it " scha'ir barri " or " scha'ir iblisse " (wild 

 barley or devil's barley). But when I asked if it was not wild wheat, 

 they admitted that it was " kamh barri " (wild wheat), being eager, 

 as the Arab always is, to agree with the opinion of a guest. 



DISCOVERY OF RYE, BOTH WILD. AND CULTIVATED, IN SYRIA. 



On my 1907 trip I was able to demonstrate that Triticum dicoccum 

 dicoccoides and Triticum monococcum aegilipoides are indigenous 

 to the vicinity of Mount Hermon; to study their distribution, their 

 preferences as to location, and their habits of growth ; and to gather 

 a number of intermediate forms, and to study their association with 

 each other and with Flordeum spontaneum. But, in addition to this. 

 I made another discovery which I should like to mention. 



I found some stools of cultivated rye (Secede cereale) at Damascus 

 in a field of wheat. Now, two days later at Zebedani, on the Anti- 



180 



