4 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 
at the meeting of the Society of German Naturalists and 
Physicians held at Stuttgart in 1834. There the Count of 
Sternberg showed ears of two wheat plants which he stated had 
been grown from some ancient grains obtained from Egypt. 
All botanists admired this display and those who were versed 
in agricultural botany found that it completely resembled a 
modern variety termed ‘Talavera wheat.’’ Talavera is a 
town in Spain. During Napoleon’s invasion of Spain the 
fine beardless white wheat of that region was transported to 
France and thence to Germany. 
Why did it resemble this particular variety of modern | 
wheat? Nobody asked that question at that time, and hith- 
erto no one in botanical literature has declared Sternberg’s 
wheat story to be false; but the men who assisted at that 
meeting learned how it happened. The gardener of Count 
Sternberg, seeing that the grains did not germinate, put 
some fresh wheat grains in the pot to provide a pleasure for 
his master. This makes it clear why the wheat of the 
Ancients 4 la Sternberg resembled the Talavera wheat. I 
obtained this interesting information from my old instructor, 
the famous Professor Alexander Braun, who as a young man 
assisted at the Stuttgart meeting. 
I will add that Prof. Gain* in Nancy has shown some years 
ago that in all ancient seeds the embryo is detached from the 
mealy part of the grain, and that it is chemically and anatom- 
ically altered and therefore cannot receive nurture. I had 
previously demonstratedt that corn obtained from the Peru- 
vian sepulchres could not germinate because the embryo is 
quite brown. In fresh grains of cereals, especially in barley, 
the embryo contains a nearly liquid fat. In grains which are 
one or more years old the fat is coagulated. This affords a 
good means for distinguishing fresh barley from old, if one 
cannot make a test by germination. 
What species of wheat were cultivated in ancient Egypt? 
* Edmond Gain, Sur les embryons du blé et de l’orge pharaoniques. 
Comptes-rendus 11 Juin, 1900,—Sur le vieillissement de l’embryon des 
Graminées, Comptes rendus 28 Dec., 1901. 
+ Reiss u. Stiibel, Das Totenfeld von Ancon. Text to Pl. 105-107. 
