PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 359 



prehistoric times. The area may have extended towards 

 Syria, as the climate is very similar, but to the east and 

 west of Western Asia wheat has probably never existed 

 but as a cultivated plant; anterior, it is true, to all known 

 civilization. 



2. Turgid, and Egyptian Wheat — Triticuvi turgidum 

 and T. compositum, Linnaeus. 



Among the numerous common names of the varieties 

 which come under this head, we find that of Egyptian 

 wheat. It appears that it is now much cultivated in that 

 country and in the whole of the Nile valley. A. P. de 

 Candolle says ^ that he recognized this wheat amongst seeds 

 taken from the sarcophagi of ancient mummies, but he 

 had not seen the ears. Unger^ thinks it was cultivated 

 by the ancient Egyptians, yet he gives no proof founded 

 on drawings or specimens. The fact that no Hebrew or 

 Armenian name ^ can be attributed to the species seems to 

 me important. It proves at least that the remarkable forms 

 with branching ears, commonly called ivheat of miracle, 

 tvheat of abundance, did not exist in antiquity, for they 

 would not have escaped the knowledge of the Israelites. 

 No Sanskrit name is known, nor even any modern Indian 

 names, and I cannot discover any Persian name. The Arab 

 names which Delile* attributes to the species belong 

 perhaps to other varieties of wheat. There is no Berber 

 name.^ From all this it results, I think, that the plants 

 united under the name of Triticuvi turgidum, and 

 especially the varieties with branching ears, are not 

 ancient in the north of Africa or in the west of Asia. 



Oswald Heer,^ in his curious paper upon the plants 

 of the lake-dwellers of the stone age in Switzerland, 

 attributes to T. turgidum two non-branched ears, the 

 one bearded, the other almost without beard, of which 

 he gives drawings. Later, in an exploration of the lake- 



* De Candolle, Physiologie Botanique, ii. p. 696. 



^ Unger, Die- Pflanzen des Alien Mgyptens, p. 31. 



' See Rosenmuller, Bibl. Naturgesch. ; and. Low, Aramaische Pflanzen 

 Namen, 1881. 



* Delile, PL Cult, en Jigypte, p. 3 ; Fl. Mgij'pt. Illus., p. 5. 



* Diet. Fr.-Berh., published by the Government. 



* Hear, Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten. p. 5, fig. 4; p. 52, fig. 20. 



