Wittmack — Our Present Knowledge of Ancient Plants. BY 
The grains which were first noticed seem all to have been. 
common wheat, Triticum vulgare. But about ten years ago: 
Prof. Schweinfurth and last year the German Oriental 
Society found another species, which is called ‘* Emmer ’’ in 
German,' Triticum dicoccum (syn. Trit. amyleum). This 
wheat has, like Spelt, Triticum Spelta and single-corn, 
Tr. monococcum, the peculiarity that the ear breaks into 
pieces when it is thrashed and the grains remain covered by 
their husks. 
This character, that the axis of the ear or panicle is brittle 
in the ripe state, we find in all wild grains. Therefore we 
must assume that the so-called Speltwheats are the primitive 
species of the genus wheat. 
Of barley, there has been found mostly the so-called small 
barley, which has 6 rows in the ear instead of 2 as the large 
barley. Grains of naked barley are also found and these 
resemble common wheat. They have sometimes been taken | 
for wheat, but they have 3 rows of albuminoid cells under 
the shell, which is a characteristic of barley. Wheat, rye, 
corn, etc., have but one. 
The barley served for making beer. Strange to say brew- 
ing is not the invention of the Germans but of the Pharaohs. 
It also served for bread making, and as such for that bread 
enclosed in the caskets with the dead. Prof. Schweinfurth 
is of the opinion that even in later times when the Egyptians 
ate the fine wheat bread, they followed the old custom of 
placing coarse barley bread in the sarcophagi of their 
mummies. 
Such bread was placed at my disposal for investigation.” 
It was about 4500 years old and did not at all look like 
bread. It had had the form of a little cone, but had fallen to. 
pieces. 
The color was quite black, resembling asphalt. But when 
I subjected small portions to microscopic investigation and 
added ammonia, it turned lighter in color and I could see the: 
epidermis-cells of the husk of the barley, which are so char- 
* Wittmack in Sitzungs-Berichte der Gesellschaft naturforschender 
Freunde, Berlin, 1896, p. 70 with figures. Compare errata, p. 105. 
