winnrpEc, 1909. 801 
as 4 guide [or taxonomic purposes, and we are thrown back, after eliminat- 
lig it, on what is left of structural differences or resemblances. It is true 
a great deal has been said about the sexual affinities of the wheats, and the 
long series of experiments by the Vilmorins, Beyerinck, Rimpau, and others 
have thrown a flood of light on the facilities of the wheats for hybridisation. 
Much has been made especially of the difficulty of crossing Hinkorn with 
other wheats, and its position as a distinct species has on that account been 
universally admitted. But common wheats have been successfully crossed 
with, structurally, much more remote species of Avgilops and even with rye, 
Moreover, so-called generic hybrids are becoming more and more frequently 
known, while, on the other hand, many species structurally very similar 
resist all attempts at crossing. Therefore the argument from sexual affinity 
to genetic affinity loses very much of its force; in fact, the latter and its: 
degrees will always have to be inferred in the first place from structural 
resemblances, the term ‘ structural’ including external as well as anatomical! 
characters. I will now set out briefly the genetic relations of the whéats asi 
they appear to me viewed from that basis, and I will start from the two: 
wild wheats, Triticum cgilopioides and Triticum dicoccoides. 
Triticum cgilopioides (Balansa) is a species ranging from the Balkan 
Peninsula and the Crimea to Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. Koer-. 
nicke distinguishes two races, a weaker one from the Balkan Peninsula and 
a more robust one from the Asiatic part of the area. The structural re- 
semblance of this species and the Einkorn, Z'r7ticum monococcum, 1s so com- 
plete that it is quite evident and generally admitted that the Hinkorn has: 
originated from Triticum egilopioides. It has given rise to few races, and. 
such as there are point rather to the Asiatic variety than to the Kuropean 
as the primitive form. The only obvious change it has undergone in the 
process of domestication is in the great reduction or almost complete sup- 
pression of the hairs of the spindle, which in the wild form are long, white, 
and altogether conspicuous. I may at once remark that the same applies 
more or less to most of the domesticated wheats, and it may be that this 
character also enters in the correlation-plexus, which is connected with the 
dissemination of the wild wheats and which I mentioned before. Hinkorn 
is, no doubt, one of the oldest wheats. Schliemann found its grains in 
considerable quantity in the ruins of Troy, in the so-called second town, 
which is approximately dated at 2000 B.c.; it has also been found in 
neolithic strata in Hungary and Switzerland. The ancient Greeks knew 
it as Tipy and ‘Andy Zed; but the Romans do not seem to have cultivated 
it, except in Upper Italy, and if the Spaniards received it early, as seems to 
be the case, it must have been by way of Gaul. It is still a common cereal 
with them; otherwise it is grown in France, Switzerland, Wurtemberg, 
Thuringia, and in some parts of the Balkan Peninsula. It does not seem 
to have spread eastward from its original home. 
The only other wild wheat is Z'riticum dicoccoides. So much turns on 
the discovery of this species that a short account of it is necessary. In 1855 
Theodor Kotschy collected a specimen of Triticum on Mount Hermon, in 
Syria. It evidently did not strike him as remarkable, as he does not 
mention it in his description of the flora of that mountain; nor was it 
noticed by any other botanist until in 1889 the late Professor Koernicke 
announced at a meeting of the Niederrheinische Gesellschaft at Bonn that 
he had found the primitive or wild state of his Triticum vulgare (which 
includes all the wheats, with the exception of the Hinkorn) in Kotschy’s 
plant from Mount Hermon. This he named Triticum vulgare var. 
dicoccoides. Nothing beyond a bare note stating this announcement was 
published at the time. But when, a few years ago, Professors Ascherson, 
Schweinfurth, and Warburg made arrangements with a young Palestine 
farmer and botanist, Mr. Aaronsohn, for the agricultural exploration of his 
1909. oF 
