452 Miscellaneous. 
DISCOVERY OF THE WILD STATE OF RYE, 
Both history and botany agree in rendering it probable that the 
Cerealia (wheat, barley, rye, and oats) come originally from Asia, 
especially from the western and central regions of that part of the 
world. Unfortunately it is difficult to prove the truth of the hypo- 
thesis by facts. This would require the discovery of specimens 
apparently wild in such conditions that they cannot be suspected to 
have escaped from cultivation, or to have been sown by travellers. 
Michaux the elder found spelt (Zriticum Spelta) on a mountain 
four days’ journey from Hamadan*. Oliviert, travelling with a 
caravan from Anah to Latakia, on the right bank of the Euphrates, 
says, ‘‘ We found near the camp, in a kind of ravine, wheat, barley, 
and spelt, which we had already seen several times in Mesopota- 
mia.” Linneeust gives as the country of summer corn (Triticum 
estivum) the country of the Baschirs, apud Baschiros in campis, on 
the authority of a traveller named Heinzelmann. I am not acquainted 
with any other certain testimony as to the origin of the Cerealia. 
M. Dureau de la Malle§ does not consider them sufficient, because 
the travellers did not remain long enough in the country to distin- 
guish with certainty the wild individual from the individual derived 
from forsaken cultivation. I would however observe that the coun- 
tries in question are mountainous, very sterile, and thinly peopled 
by unsettied tribes. The assertion of Linneus, which is accompanied 
by no details, is that which deserves the least confidence, the more 
so as the country of the Baschirs has been frequently visited within 
acentury. Link|| does not admit it. M. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps4 , 
in a modern and special work, does not bring forward any new facts. 
He states, with reason, that the primitive country of these species 
may have originally been very extensive, but that cultivation having 
been early established in Sicily, Greece, Syria, &c., it has always 
been difhieult to distinguish the wild specimens from those which 
have escaped from cultivation. He adds, with still greater reason, 
that if the Cerealia were different primitively from what they now 
are—if, for instance, they had had the form of certain A’gylops or 
Lolium,—man would never have had the idea of cultivating them. 
The species must have been very much like what they now are to 
have led to any being at the pains to sow them. Has any barbarous 
people ever been observed to attempt the cultivation of A‘gylops or 
of darnel (Lolium temulentum)? Naturalists may have the curiosity 
to doso: the primitive peoples never had: it is much, indeed, that 
they essayed to eat the grain of wheat, and to cultivate it, after 
having ascertained its nutritious properties. 
In all the works above quoted, rye is not mentioned unless to 
* Lamarck, Dict. Eney., Part. Bot. 11. 560. 
+ Voyage dans l'‘Empire Ottoman, iii, 460. 
} Species Plantarum, 2nd edit. 126. 
§ Recherches sur l'Histoire ancienne, l’origine et la patrie des Céreales, 
Ann. Scien. Nat. Ser. 1. ix. 61. 
| Die Urwelt und das Alterthum, &c. ed. 2. p. 407. 
q Considératious sur les Céreales, 1843, p. 22. 
