WILD EMMER 185 



variation of the plants and the experimental production and cultivation 

 of the hybrid the matter must remain unsettled. 



While the majority of ears collected on Mount Hermon, when grown 

 at Reading, have given forms of T. dicoccoides with constant characters, 

 many of them have produced a mixed progeny of typical dicoccoides and 

 a small number of vulgar e and durum-\ike forms, most of which in the 

 first season are either completely sterile or produce only two or three 

 fertile grains in an ear. 



During the last ten years I have grown T. dicoccoides and found that 

 these natural hybrids are produced in bright, hot seasons. Apparently 

 typical ears of T. dicoccoides sometimes give rise to offspring like them- 

 selves, together with forms of T. durum and T. vulgar e and T. Spelta ; 

 in such cases one of the grains of a spikelet often produces the typical 

 wild wheat, while the other grain of the same spikelet gives rise to one or 

 other of the strikingly different cultivated wheats. 



