52 



THE SMALL GRAINS 



always resistant to orange leaf-rust. The spikes are com- 

 pact, often rather slender, but may be very short, flat- 

 tened on the furrow side, and are always awned ; spike- 

 lets with 2 to 4 kernels. The glumes are prominently and 

 sharply keeled, and the lemma somewhat compressed and 



narrowly arched in 

 the back. The 

 kernels are usually 

 rather long, very 

 hard, sometimes 

 translucent and vit- 

 reous in fracture, 

 amber colored, oc- 

 casionally inclining 

 to reddish (Fig. 16). 

 The varieties of 

 this subspecies are 

 most widely known 

 as durum wheats. 

 In Europe they are 

 called simply hard 



wheats, and 

 rectly so, 

 are the 

 kerneled 

 that are 



cor- 



as they 

 hardest 

 wheats 

 known. 



FIG. 16. Durum wheat : on the left, spike 

 and kernel, i natural size ; on the right, 

 spikelet and kernel, X 1*. 



The Fife, Bluestem, 



-, m i 

 and lurkey, called 



hard wheats in this 

 country, are not" nearly so hard as these. On account 

 of the resemblance of the spikes of durum wheat to 

 those of barley the former is sometimes called Gersten- 

 weizen or barley wheat. 



