158 THE WHEAT PLANT 



RACE XI. Triticum Spelta, L. Large Spelt or Dinkel. 



Coleoptile, 2-nerved. 



Young shoots, erect or prostrate ; young leaves dark green with few hairs 

 arranged as in T. vulgare. 



Straw, stout and hollow. 



Ear, very lax, bearded with short awns or beardless ; rachis broad and stout, 

 convex on one side, flat or concave on the other, fragile, breaking transversely 

 below each spikelet ; spikelets narrow with 2-3 grains. 



Empty glume, firm, with broad truncate apex ; apical tooth short and blunt ; 

 prominent lateral nerve ending in a blunt projection. 



Grain, long, usually flinty, somewhat pointed at both ends, apex with tuft 

 of hair, ventral surface flattened or hollowed slightly, furrow shallow. 



VARIETY. The several races of wheats are subdivided into smaller 

 groups or varieties, these being founded upon a number of obvious 

 hereditary morphological differences of the ears and grain. 



The presence or absence of awns, the colour, smoothness, and hairiness 

 of the chaff, and other characters were utilised in subdividing the races 

 by Seringe, Metzger, Vilmorin, and others. The scheme adopted by 

 Kornicke I have found most convenient and clearly defined for taxonomic 

 purposes, and it carries the classification further without loss of clearness 

 than any previous scheme. 



The following are the characters on which varieties are based : 



1 . Presence or absence of awns. 



2. Colour of glumes (white, red, or black). 



3. Colour of the awn (white, red, or black). 



4. Glabrous or pubescent glumes. 



5. Colour of grain (white or red). 



In the races T. turgidum and T. dicoccum in which branching of the 

 rachis is hereditary the division into simple and compound ears is made. 



While all the characters mentioned are hereditary, the extent of their 

 development is affected in greater or lesser degree by external con- 

 ditions, a fact to be borne in mind when a decision has to be made in 

 respect of the variety under which a particular individual is to be classed. 



Beardless wheats, as explained in another place (p. 104), are either 

 truly awnless or the awns of the flowering glume are not more than one 

 or two cm. long, the bearded forms of the same race having awns three 

 or four times this length. In practice there is no risk of confusing the 

 bearded with the beardless condition. 



The glume colour is constant, but in some seasons the black tint is 

 greatly subdued, or missing altogether, and the pale red varieties are 

 sometimes difficult to separate from those with white chaff. 



The awns of varieties with white and red chaff are either white or red 

 like the glume, or black. The black pigment, however, is so variable in 



