170 Floivcrs and their Pedigj^ces. 



The nearest form to true wheat now found wild in 

 the British Islesjs the creeping couch-grass, a perennial 

 closely agreeing in all essential particulars of structure 

 with our cultivated annual wheats. But in the south 

 European region we find in abundance a large series 

 of common wild annual grasses, forming the genus 

 yEgilops of technical botany, and exactly resembling 

 true wheat in every point except the size of the grain. 

 One species of this genus, ^gilops ovata, a small, hard, 

 wiry annual, is now pretty generally recognised among 

 botanists as the parent of our cultivated corn. There 

 was a good reason, indeed, why primitive man, when 

 he first began to select and rudely till a few seeds for 

 his own use, should have specially affected the grass 

 tribe. No other family of plants has seeds richer in 

 starches and glutens, as indeed might naturally be 

 expected from the extreme diminution in the number 

 of seeds to each flower. On the other hand, the flowers 

 on each plant are peculiarly numerous ; so that we get 

 the combined advantages of many seeds, and rich seeds, 

 so seldom to be found elsewhere except among the 

 pulse family. The experiments conducted by the Agri- 

 cultural Society in their College Garden at Cirencester 

 have also shown that careful selection will produce large 

 and rich seeds from ^gilops ovata, considerably re- 

 sembling true wheat, after only a few years' cultivation 



