The Oj-igin of Wheat. 151 



From this brief sketch of the main line of upward 

 evolution from lilies to orchids, we must now return 

 to the grand junction afforded us by the lilies them- 

 selves, and travel down the other line of degeneracy 

 and degradation which leads us on to the grasses and 

 the cereals, including at last our own familiar culti- 

 vated wheat. Any trinarj' flower with three calyx- 

 pieces, three petals, six stamens, and a three-celled 

 pistil not concealed within an inclosing tube, is said 

 to be a lily, as long as it possesses brightly coloured 

 and delicate petals. There are, however, a large 

 number of somewhat specialised lilies with very small 

 and inconspicuous petals, which have been artificiall)- 

 separated by botanists as the rush family, not because 

 they were really different in any important point of 

 structure from the acknowledged lilies, but merely 

 because they had not got such brilliant and handsome 

 blossoms. These despised and neglected plants, how- 

 ever, supply us with the first downward step on the 

 path of degeneracy which leads at last to the grasses, 

 and they may be considered as intermediate stages in 

 the scale of degradation, fortunately preserved for us 

 by exceptional circumstances to the present day. 

 Even among the true lilies, there arc some, like the 

 garlic and onion tribe, which ^how considerable marks 

 of degeneration, owing to some decline from the type 



