578 sturtevant's notes on edible plants 



This is the species which includes all the true wheats, excepting the spelts. It is said 

 to have been found wild in various parts of Asia where it is not likely to have escaped 

 from cultivation." According to Grecian fable, it was originally native on the plains 

 of Enna and in Sicily, but it is much more probable that it is a native of the plains about 

 the Caspian. 



Isis was supposed to have introduced wheat into Egypt; Demeter, into Greece; and 

 the Emperor Chin-nong, into China about 3000 B. C.^ Standing crops of bearded wheat 

 are figured in Egypt under the Fourth Dynasty, about 2440 B. C, at Gizeh, but nowhere 

 on these nor on subsequent montunents with the minute accuracy required for distinguishing 

 species.* In Greece, Theophrastus * mentioned eight varieties and among the carbonized 

 seeds exhvmied by Dr. Schliemann ' in Greece is a very hard, fine-grained, sharp wheat, 

 very flat on the furrowed side, which is said to differ from any wheat hitherto known. In 

 Europe, wheat was cultivated before the period of written history as samples have been 

 removed from the debris of the lacustrine habitations in Switzerland which do not differ 

 in size and form from our varieties.' Wheat is mentioned by Diodorus as growing wild 

 in Sicily, and ears of bearded wheat appear on most of the ancient Sicilian coins. On two 

 Leontine brass coins are figures of Ceres in addition to the usual ears of com.' 



In France, wheat was the most valued cereal in the eighth century as shown by the 

 maximimi price fixed by an edict of Charlemagne wherein oats were to be sold at one 

 denier, barley at two deniers, rye at three deniers and wheat at four deniers a bushel.' 

 It is probable, says C. W. Johnson,' that wheat was not cultivated by the early Britons 

 for the climate, owing to the immense preponderance of woods and vmdrained soil, was 

 so severe and wet that, in winter, they could attempt no agricultural employments, and 

 even when Bede '" wrote, early in the eighth century, the Anglo-Saxons sowed their wheat 

 in spring. Wheat remained an article of comparative luxury until nearly the seventeenth 

 century. That the ctiltivation of wheat in England was imimportant in the reign of 

 Elizabeth, is attested by Tussar." Yet wheat was cultivated by the Romans and is 

 mentioned by Columella,'^ Pliny,"' Cicero," Caesar " and many others. 



In India, wheat seems not to be native but introduced, if we can trust to the Sanscrit 

 name, which, translated, is food of the Barbarians, but this may mean that the center 



' De CandoUe, A. Geog. Bot. 2:931, 932. 1855. 



' Unger, F. V. S. Pat. Off. Rpt. 303. 1859. 



' Kckering, C. Chron. Hist. Ph. sg. 1879. {T. turgidum) 



* Hooker, W. J. Journ. Bot. 1:216. 1834. 

 ' Schliemann, Dr. Amer. Antiq. 66. 1880. 



' Lubbock Amer. Journ. Set. Art. 34: 181. 1862. 

 ' Hooker, W. J. Journ. Bot. 1:216. 1834. 

 'Guizot, M. Hist. Civil. 3:25. 1857. 



Johnson, C. W. Journ. A gr. 11:482. 1841. 

 ' Ibid. 



"Ibid. 



" Andrews La/in Lexicon 1570. 1861. 



" Ibid. 



" Ibid. 



Ibid. 



