COMMON BREAD WHEAT 271 



The grains, usually 3 or 4 per spikelet, are flinty or semi-flinty, very 

 soft, mealy endosperm being uncommon ; they are held somewhat firmly 

 in the glumes. 



All forms of this group are very susceptible to attacks of Yellow Rust, 

 which in England often damages the plants so much that few or no grains 

 attain their full development. 



GROUP II. Endemic Persian and Central Asiatic Wheats. The young 

 shoots are erect or semi-erect ; the straw of medium height, somewhat 

 thick and soft ; the leaves yellow-green or glaucous. 



They are chiefly early or mid-season forms, with lax quadrate ears 

 and characteristic swollen spikelets. 



The ears are stiff, 9-12 cm. long ; the awns of the bearded forms stout, 

 brittle, and scabrid ; spikelets 16-20, elongated, often irregularly arranged 

 on the rachis ; the grain large and generally soft (Figs. 174, 179). 



GROUP III. Early or mid-season forms, which show affinities with 

 bearded T. Spelta ; they are endemic in Persia, Bokhara, and Turkestan, 

 and I have met with examples among wheats from Portugal, Spain, and 

 Argentina (2, Fig. 173). 



The young shoots are erect, the straw stiff, of medium height, leaves 

 glaucous or yellow-green. 



The ears are 9-12 cm. long, narrow, quadrate, 8-10 mm. across the 

 face and side, lax, with narrow elongated spikelets, the empty glumes 

 rigid and frequently keeled to the base, lateral nerve prominent. 



The awns of the flowering glumes 6-10 mm. long, scabrid. 



The grain is long, narrow, semi-flinty, and firmly invested by the 

 glumes. 



The rachis breaks readily, but is not so brittle as in the typical bearded 

 forms of T. Spelta. 



GROUP IV. Endemic Japanese and Chinese Wheats. Very early 

 wheats, which come into ear at Reading about the end of May or first week 

 of June. The young shoots are erect ; the straw somewhat short, 95- 

 115 cm. (38-46 inches) high, soft, hollow, and of large diameter; the 

 leaves in some forms yellow-green, in others more or less glaucous. The 

 ears are of medium length (9-12 cm. long), well filled from the base to the 

 apex, the spikelets 22-26, 5- to 7-flowered, frequently ripening 4 grains in 

 each : in several forms some of the ears of a plant are clubbed while the 

 rest are uniformly dense throughout (Fig. 189). The empty glumes 

 are frequently keeled to the base, the awns of the flowering glumes of 

 bearded forms slender and comparatively short (4-6 cm. long). The 

 glumes are thin and very easily separated from the rachis, and the grain 

 often visible between them and readily shed. 



The grains are dark red, of fair milling quality. 



