642 



POACE^. 



annuals or winter annuals with flat leaf -blades. Spikes terminal, 

 cylindrical, or somewhat flattened. Species not over 10, found in 

 the vicinity of the Mediterranean Sea. 



The genus Triticum excludes Agropyron, the species of which 

 were at one time included in it, and now includes JEgilops. In 

 Triticum. the lateral nerves of the floral glume are not connivent, 

 but parallel or nearly so, and either stop short of the apex or are 

 produced beyond it into distinct teeth or awns. There are three 

 groups : 



1. Wheats in cultivation. Floral glumes keeled at the apex and 

 sometimes at the base, and terminate in a single awn; lateral nerves 

 usually barely reaching to the end of the glume. 



2. CritJiodium Link. Spikelets with only 1 fertile flower, floral 

 glume keeled from the base and ends in a single awn. One species 

 sometimes has two or even three fertile flowers, and the lateral 

 nerves of the floral glumes sometimes produced into short teeth. 



3. ^^gilops L. Differing from the cereal wheats in having a 

 floral glume more rounded on the back and not at all keeled, lateral 



nerves of floral glume often produced 

 into long awns ; hybridizes freely with the 

 cultivated wheats. 



1. T. vuLGARE Vill. Hist. PI. Dauph. 

 2:153. Wheat. 



This includes all the well-known races 



cultivated in this country, whether 



"bearded" or '*bald," "red chaff" or 



"white chaff," scoring wheat or winter 



wheat. The native country of this very 

 Fig. 132. — Triticum vulgare. , , , , . ^ , * t. . . 



Spikelet. (Richiirdson.) valuable cereal is not known. It is not 



improbable tliat a wild plant of southern Europe known as 



^■Egilops L. is the original form. 



143. (274). HoRDEUM L. Sp. PI. 84 (17,53). Barley. Cuvi- 

 era Koel. Gram. 328 (1802). Zeocriton Beauv. Agrost. 114 (1812). 

 Critesion Eafin. Journ. Pliys. 89 : 103 (1819). Critho E. Mey. Ind. 

 Sem. Hort. Eegiom. 5 (1848). 



Spikelets 1 -flowered, 3 together, distichous, sessile or on short 



