860 ORIGilN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



dwellings of Robenliausen, Messicommer did not find it, 

 although there was abundant store of grain.^ Strcebel 

 and Pigorini said they found wheat with gixtno grosso 

 clm^o (T. turgidum), in the lake-dwellings of Parmesan.^ 

 For the rest, Heer ^ considers this to be a variety or race 

 of the common wheat, and Sordelli inclines to the same 

 opinion. 



Fraas thinks that the Jcrithanias of Theophrastus was 

 T. turgidmn, but this is absolutely uncertain. Accord- 

 ing to Heldreich,"* the great wheat is of modern intro- 

 duction into Greece. Pliny ^ spoke briefly of a wheat 

 with branching ears, yielding one hundred grains, which 

 was most likely our oniraculous luheat. 



Thus history and philology alike lead us to consider 

 the varieties of Triticurii turgidiun as modifications of 

 the common wheat obtained by cultivation. The form 

 with branching ears is not perhaps earlier than Pliny's 

 time. 



These deductions would be overthrown by the dis- 

 covery of the T. tiirgidiim in a wild state, which has not 

 hitherto been made with certainty. In spite of C. Koch,® 

 no one admits that it grows, outside cultivation, at Con- 

 stantinople and in Asia Minor. Boissier's herbarium, so 

 rich in Eastern plants, has no specimen of it. It is given 

 as wild in Egypt by Schweinfui-th and Ascherson, but 

 this is the result of a misprint.'' 



3. Hard Wheat — Triticuin durum, Desfontaines. 



Long cultivated in Barbary, in the south of Switzer- 

 land and elsewhere, it has never been found wild. In 

 the different provinces of Spain it has no less than 

 fifteen names,** and none are derived from the Arab 

 name quemah used in Algeria^ and Egypt.^^ The 



' Messicommer, in Flora, 1869, p. 320. 



* Quoted from Sordelli, Notizie sull. Lagozza, p. 32. 

 ' Heer, vhi supra, p. 50. 



* Heldreich, Die Nxitzpflanzen Griechenlands, p. 5. 



^ Pliny, Hifit., lib. xviii. cap. 10. • Koch, Linncea, xxi. p. 127. 



^ Letter from Ascherson, 1881. * Diet. MS. of Vernacular Names. 

 " Debeaux, Catal. des Plan, de Boghar, p. 110. 



^^ Delile says (ubi supra) that wheat is called qamh, and a re<i 

 variety qamh-ahmar 



