HOWARD 



ll 



can make out the components of a mixed sample with tolerable accuracy. 

 There are four shapes which are most frequently found and which have been 

 employed as an aid to classification in the present paper ; the ordinary long 

 grain, which is the best known forni; the short or tiuncated form. i.e.. one in 

 which the end appears to have been cut off, the rounded form, and the form 

 in which the dorsal side is raised. This latter bears some resemblance to the 

 hump of a camel and as a word was required to describe it shortly, the term 

 '■' humped " has been employed. All four forms are shown verv nuich en- 

 larged in Figure 1. 



Another character which is useful is the colour of the straw. Many 

 Indian wheats exhibit a pink tinge on the straw on ripening. The phik colour- 

 ing matter turns black when the straw is quite ripe and gives the latter a grey 

 or purple appearance. This peculiar colour of the straw is easilv seen and is 

 a definitelv inherited character. 



Shoit. 



Ordinary. Round. 



Fig. 1. — Grain-shape in wiieat. 



Humped. 



Enough has been said to show that modern investigations have rendered 

 the scheme cf botanical varieties proposed by Koernicke somewhat out-of- 

 date. There are three principal reasons why the scheme is no longer adequate. 

 In the first place, the characters chosen do not present simple alternatives such 

 as presence or absence of awns but may be present to different degrees. In 

 the second place, the characters employed are too few and, as a result, many 

 wheats, obviously different even on a macroscopic examination in the labora- 

 tory, fall into one variety. Thirdly, as material from other parts of the world 

 has become available, new forms have been found necessitating new varietal 

 names. For histance. there is no varietal name for a bearded wheat with black 

 awns, red and black chaff and white grain although such wheats occur in 

 Bihar. The need for a revised systematic scheme for wheat is obvious, but 

 such a scheme must be based on examination of wheats from all parts of the 

 world and to devise a new scheme for the Indian wheats by themselves would 

 only add to the confusion and would prove of no ultimate advantage. 



In the present paper, the botanical varieties, as defined by Koernicke, 

 have been subdivided where necessary into classes, the class distinctions being 

 based on the degree of bearding, felting, the tone of colour of the chaff, glume- 

 shaj)©; shape of the grain and colour of the straw. 



