CHAPTER XII 



WILD EMMER 



T. dicoccoides, Korn. in Hit. ex Schweinf. in Ber. d. Deutsch. Bot. Ges. 309 

 (1908). 



T. vulgare, Vill., var. dicoccoides, Korn. Verh. des naturhist. Vereins d. Pr. 

 Rheinl., Jahrg. 46, Bonn (1889). 



T. hermonis, Cook. Bureau of PL Ind. (U.S.A.) Bull. No. 274, 13, 52 (1913). 



IN 1873 Kornicke discovered in the National Herbarium at Vienna a 

 portion of an ear of a species of Triticum among specimens of Hordeum 

 spontaneum collected in 1855 by Theodor Kotschy at Rasheyya on the 

 north-western side of Mount Hermon in Syria. In 1899 he referred to 

 the plant at a meeting of the Niederrheinischen Gesellschaft fur Natur- 

 und Heilkunde, and according to the report of the meeting he named it 

 T. vulgare, Vill., var. dicoccoides, considering it closely allied to Emmer and 

 the prototype of most of the cultivated wheats. 



The plant was rediscovered first at Rosh Pinar at the foot of Jebel 

 Safed in Syria by Aaronsohn in 1906 and later at Rasheyya and other parts 

 of Mount Hermon as well as on the plateau of Es-Salt east of the Jordan 

 valley. Specimens were also collected in 1910 by Theodor Strauss in 

 the mountainous region of Western Persia near Kerind, between Kerman- 

 shah and Bagdad. 



T. dicoccoides grows in the crevices of limestone rocks in dry situations 

 from 300 to 500 feet below to over 6000 feet above the level of the Medi- 

 terranean, and is generally associated with Hordeum spontaneum and often 

 with forms of Triticum aegilopoides. 



The reports of Aaronsohn, Cook, and others who have observed T. 

 dicoccoides in its native habitat leave no doubt that it is truly wild, and 

 different from any kind of wheat at present cultivated in Palestine. 



For some time I have grown it from ears obtained from El Hadr and the 

 eastern slopes of Mount Hermon. I have also examined specimens col- 

 lected by Strauss in Western Persia and others from various parts of Syria. 



The plants in their native habitat exhibit great diversity in the form of 

 the glumes, the size and prominence of the keel and secondary teeth, and 



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