BARLEY 



123 



eighteenth century. No 

 form of hulless barley has 

 been found wild 1 (Fig. 

 37). 



As research goes on, one 

 principle appears to be grad- 

 ually working out, strikingly 

 common to all the cereals, 

 that the most common and 

 most diverse groups are the 

 oldest, and also the fact that 

 each cereal except rye, includes 

 more than one species, each of 

 which is probably of different 

 origin. Some of the detail 

 facts supporting these principles 

 may here be stated ; for ex- 

 ample, those cultivated groups 

 having the greatest tendency 

 toward articulation of the 

 rachis, the greatest degree of 

 hairiness, and the longest and 

 stiffest beards are the least 

 separated from their wild 

 forms, and their ancestry should 

 therefore be most easily traced. 



115. Present range. - 

 Spring barleys attain the 

 highest latitude and alti- 

 tude of all cereals. Winter 



FIG. 37. Spikelets of wild barley 

 (Hordeum spontaneum). 



1 As recent as 1895 Bornmuller discovered in Kurdistan, 

 Persia, a primitive form, closely related to H. spontaneum, which 

 Kornicke (1908) has identified as the var. ischnatherum of 

 Boissier's H. ithaburense, and from which Schulz (1913, pp. 90- 

 93) believes H. polystichum, Doll, to be derived, the latter in- 

 cluding the six-row barleys. 



