3 8 2 THE WHEAT PLANT 



At first almost sterile and sparing in yield of grain during the first 

 three or four years, they became by degrees more fertile, the ears lost 

 much of their brittle character, increased in length, and the number of 

 flowers in the spikelets rose from 2 to 4 or 5. 



The empty glumes lost the broad, symmetrical, convex form of those 

 of the original mother plant, becoming longer, carinate, and unsymmetrical 

 like those of wheat, and the number of awns decreased from 4 to i with 

 mere rudiments of others (3, Fig. 223). 



Aegilops ovata never appeared among the descendants, and the latter 

 in seven or eight years were indistinguishable from ordinary cultivated 

 wheat of the district, having tall stiff straw and ears with 8-12 spikelets, 

 each bearing 2-3 fertile grains. 



From his observations and experiments Fabre concluded that Aegilops 

 triticoides was a sport of A. ovata, which under cultivation was gradually 

 transformed into ordinary wheat, and that all wheats had their origin in 

 Aegilops ovata. 



Fab re's facts were confirmed by others, but his conclusions were the 

 subject of dispute for a long time. 



Regel appears to have suggested that A. triticoides was possibly a 

 hybrid, but it was Godron who first experimentally established the hybrid 

 nature of Requien's species. This botanist, in 1853, scattered the pollen 

 of a beardless form of wheat (Touzelle) on six ears of A. ovata about the 

 time of anthesis ; from five of these ears only typical plants of A. ovata 

 were raised, but one grain of the sixth inflorescence produced a short- 

 awned form of A. triticoides. Later (in 1859) he sowed wheat in the 

 Botanic Garden at Nancy, in rows 50 cm. apart, and planted ears of A. 

 ovata between them. In 1860 he collected 872 ears from the Aegilops 

 plants ; these he put in the soil in February 1861, and from them were 

 produced twelve plants of A. triticoides in July. He obtained similar 

 natural hybrids in his own garden in 1870 and 1871 from A. ov at a exposed 

 to the pollen of wheat plants growing near. 



The artificial production of A. triticoides was carried out by Godron 

 in 1853. Two flowers of an ear of A. ovata, after careful emasculation, 

 were pollinated with pollen from a bearded vulgare wheat ; from these 

 A. triticoides was raised, the remaining close-pollinated flowers of the 

 same ear giving rise to plants of A. ovata. 



Regel, Greenland, and Planchon also produced the hybrid by care- 

 fully controlled artificial crossing of A. ovata with beardless forms of 

 T. vulgare. 



A. triticoides in a wild state is nearly always sterile, never abundant, 

 and always sporadically distributed in the neighbourhood of wheat fields, 

 having long awns in the districts where bearded wheats are cultivated 

 (Fig. 222), and short awns where beardless wheats are grown (2, Fig. 223). 



