290 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



appears on soils which have been cultivated for any pur- 

 pose. It grows only upon the slopes of the most arid 

 and rocky hills and in places exposed to the hottest rays 

 of the oriental sun." (Figure 44.) 



Aaronsohn's observations have been confirmed by O. F. 

 Cook of the United States Department of Agriculture, who 

 visited the Holy Land in 1910, found the wild wheat, 

 and carried out an independent investigation upon its 

 characteristics. Cook reports in his well illustrated 

 Bulletin that the wild Triticum is widely distributed on 

 the slopes of the Anti-Lebanon range of mountains in 

 northern Palestine and Syria, and that it behaves in 

 every way as a truly indigenous plant ; and he further 

 points out that it is especially abundant on limestone 

 formations where it often appears to be the dominant 

 species. His illustrations show the wild wheat in tufts 

 growing on the arid slopes of hills among stones and 

 bowlders much in the same manner as its distant relatives 

 the Couch-grass or False Wheat (Agropyron repens) and 

 the Slender Wheat-grass {A. tenerum,) now grow from 

 the cracks and crevices of the glaciated rocky hummocks 

 which make up so much of the land surface at Kenora 

 and other places on the Lake of the Woods. 



The scientific name of the wild wheat used by Aaron- 

 sohn is Triticum dicoccum dicoccoides and was chosen be- 

 cause the name of the cultivated wheat to which in Aaron- 

 sohn's opinion the wild wheat is most closely related (Em- 

 mer), is Triticum dicoccum. The triple name Triticum 

 dicoccum dicoccoides^ however, is cumbersome and tauto- 

 logical, and it makes the wild wheat a variety of a culti- 

 vated wheat. Moreover, Cook has doubts based on morpho- 

 logical grounds as to the propriety of associating the wild 

 wheat so closely with Emmer. Cook has therefore sug- 

 gested that the name Triticum dicoccum, dicoccoides should 



