THE CEREAL FAMILY. 34! 



excluded. * This was proved, first, by extensive examination 

 in the Wheat-fields, and by bringing a large supply of Wheat- 

 heads about to flower into the house and putting them in water, 

 with a paper under the glass so as to see if any pollen fell 

 down ; secondly, by the examination of the stigmas of flowers 

 with their anthers still included ; thirdly, by the fact that the 

 stigmas are never protruded at all."t 



Our cultivated Wheats ( Triticum sativum) are now generally 

 believed to have originated from ^Sgilops ovata, a European 

 grass of trailing habit, the rachis being extremely brittle. Cul- 

 tivation i.e., sowing seeds thickly together induces a taller 

 and more erect habit, and a stouter culm is also the natural 

 result of better food in less limited quantities. In the * Cyclo- 

 paedia of Agriculture' ("Triticum"), Mr Bentham observes that 

 M. Esprit Fabre of Agde, in the south of France, has shown 

 how readily wild characters " become modified by cultivation ; 

 and wide as is the apparent difference between &. ovata and 

 common Wheat, he has practically proved their botanical 

 identity; for from seeds of the jEgilops, first sown in 1838, 

 carefully raised in garden soil, and resown every year from 

 their produce, he had, through successive transformations, by 

 the eighth year (1846) obtained crops of real Wheat, as good as 

 the generality of those cultivated in his neighbourhood." (See 

 <Sc. and Prac. of Farm. Cult/ (Buckman), p. 164.) Further 

 information on the origin of Wheat may be obtained from the 

 'Bulletin de la Societe Botanique de France,' t. viii. p. 614. 

 The cultivated Oats (Avena sativd) again have, according to 

 Prof. Buckman, originated from Avena fatua, a very trouble- 

 some weed-grass, to which indeed the cultivated or ennobled 

 Oat frequently degenerates. Prof. Lindley, however, in the 

 article "Avena," in the 'Cyclopaedia of Agriculture,' supposes 

 A. strigosa, the " Bristle-pointed Oat," to be the original 

 parent of the cultivated varieties. Barley (Hordenm distichuni) 

 is found wild in Mesopotamia, and also on the ruins of Per- 

 sepolis, specimens from the last-named locality having ears 

 scarcely so long as starved Rye. All the cultivated varieties, 

 including the "six -rowed" Barley (H. hexastichuiri], have 

 originated from the species above-named, the only difference 



* Confirming the observations of Dr Boswell-Syme, 'Jour, of Botany,' 

 1871, p. 373 ; and Bidard, Comptes Rendus, 1869, p. 1486. 



f See 'Gard. Chron.',' 1873, P- 362,400, for an abstract from a paper by 

 Prof. Hildebrand of Freiburg on the "Fertilisation of Grasses," read be- 

 fore the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1872 ; also a paper on " Wheat 

 and Rye Hybrids," 'Gard. Chron.,' 1875, p. 496 ; and ibid., 1873, P- 3^2, 

 400, for a paper on the "Natural Cross-Fertilisation of Monoecious, Dioe- 

 cious, Protogynous, and other Grasses." 



