l.'iG H18TU1U(JAL IS'UTES ON 



ill stating our conviction, as the result of all the most reliahle 

 evidence bearing upon the subject, that none of these Cerealia 

 exist, or have existed, truly wild in their present state, but that 

 all are cultivated varieties of species now growing in great 

 abundance in Southern Europe or Western Asia. We believe 

 that most, if not all, of our cultivated varieties of wheat originally 

 sprung from one botanical species of ^gilops {JE. ovata), except- 

 ing the smaller spelts of southern Europe, which are modifications 

 of ^'Egilops camluta and Crithodium (eyilojwides ; that our barley 

 and oats now grow wild in Europe in the form of some one of 

 the recognised species of Hordeuni and Arena respectively, 

 although data are still wanting to determine precisely which is in 

 each case the true type, and how many of the forms described as 

 species it should include ; and that our rye is a South European 

 and Asiatic plant chiefly from the neighbourhood of the Black 

 Sea, the Secale montannm of Gussone and S. fragile of Bieberstein 

 being varieties at least of the original botanical species. 



The different Millets mentioned as cultivated in Tuscany belong 

 to four botanical species, the miglio (Panicum miliaceum), the 

 paiiico (Setaria italica), the saggine in spiga (Penicillaria spicata), 

 and five varieties (or, according to some, species) of saggine proper, 

 (Sorghum). Of these the Panicum niiliacexnn and the Setaria 

 were already known to the ancient Romans from a very remote 

 period ; the black-seeded Sorghum is recorded as having been 

 introduced from India in the time of Pliny; and the other varieties, 

 as well as the Penicillaria, are of more recent introduction from 

 India or from Africa, All four species appear to have supplied 

 grain for food, in periods of very remote antiquity, in Egypt or 

 India, where their wild prototypes must be sought for. The 

 Panicum miliaceum, and some varieties of the Penicillaria, are 

 but little altered from the original forms as still found in those 

 countries. The Setaria italica is not unlikely to be a luxuriant 

 cultivated form of the S. glauca, a most abundant weed in all 

 warm countries. As to the cultivated Sorghums, most botanists 

 distinguish several species, although none are to be found in a 

 wild state, except perhaps those which have a more, diffuse 

 panicle with less crowded flowers, and which come the nearest to 

 the more luxuriant specimens of the Sorghum halepense, which is 



plants. The fact that wheat, cultivated as it is in all climates where it can 

 be made to grow, will nowhere propagate itself as a weed of cultivation, 

 is a further proof that it is in a state much altered from its original wild 

 form. 



