800 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



dwellings of Robenhausen, Messicommer did not find iti 

 although there was abundant store of grain.^ Stroebel 

 and Pigorini said they found wheat with grano grosso 

 duro (T. turgidum), in the lake-dwellings of Parmesan.^ 

 For the rest, Heer ^ considers this to be a variety or race 

 of the common wheat, and Sordelli inclines to the same 

 opinion. 



Fraas thinks that the hrithanias of Theophrastus was 

 T, turgidum, but this is absolutely uncertain. Accord- 

 ing to Heldreich,'* the great wheat is of modern intro- 

 duction into Greece. Pliny ^ spoke briefly of a wheat 

 with branching ears, yielding one hundred grains, which 

 was most likely our miraculous wheat 



Thus history and philology alike lead us to consider 

 the varieties of Triticum turgidum as modifications of 

 the common wheat obtained by cultivation. The form 

 with branching ears is not perhaps earlier than Pliny's 

 time. 



These deductions would be overthrown by the dis- 

 covery of the T. turgidum in a wild state, which has not 

 hitherto been made with certainty. In spite of C. Koch,^ 

 no one admits that it grows, outside cultivation, at Con- 

 stantinople and in Asia Minor. Boissier's herbarium, so 

 rich in Eastern plants, has no specimen of it. It is given 

 as wild in Eg3rpt by Schweinfui'th and Ascherson, but 

 this is the result of a misprint.' 



3. Hard Wheat — Triticum durum, Desfontaines. 



Long cultivated in Barbary, in the south of Switzer- 

 land and elsewhere, it has never been found wild. In 

 the different provinces of Spain it has no less than 

 fifteen names," and none are derived from the Arab 

 name quemah used in Algeria^ and Egypt.^^ The 



* Messicommer, in Flora, 1869, p. 320. 



• Quoted from Sordelli, Notizie sull. Lagozza, p. 32. 



■ Heer, uhi supra, p. 50. 



* Heldreich, Die Nutzpfianzen Griechenlamds, p. 5. 



■ Pliny, Hist.f lib. xviii. cap. 10. • Koch, Lirmcea, xxi. p. 427. 

 ' Letter from Asclierson, 1881. • Diet, MS. of Vernacular- Names. 



• Debeanx, Catal. des Plan, de Bogha/r, p. 110. 



'• Delile says {ubi supra) that wheat is called qamh, and a red 

 Variety qamh-ahmar 



