452 Miscellaneous. 



DISCOVERY OF THE WILD STATE OF RYE. 



Both history and botany agree in rendering it probable that the 

 Cerealia (wheat, barley, rye, and oats) come originally from Asia, 

 especially from the western and central regions of that part of the 

 world. Unfortunately it is difficult to prove the truth of the hypo- 

 thesis by facts. This would require the discovery of specimens 

 apparently wild in such conditions that they cannot be suspected to 

 have escaped from cultivation, or to have been sown by travellers. 

 Michaux the elder found spelt (Triticum Spelta) on a mountain 

 four days' journey from Hamadan*. Olivierf, travelling with a 

 caravan from Anah to Latakia, on the right bank of the Euphrates, 

 says, " We found near the camp, in a kind of ravine, wheat, barley, 

 and spelt, which we had already seen several times in Mesopota- 

 mia." Linnaeus £ gives as the country of summer corn (Triticum 

 astivnm) the country of the Baschirs, apud Baschiros in campis, on 

 the authority of a traveller named Heinzelmann. I am not acquainted 

 with any other certain testimony as to the origin of the Cerealia. 

 M. Dureau de la Malle§ does not consider them sufficient, because 

 the travellers did not remain long enough in the country to distin- 

 guish with certainty the wild individual from the individual derived 

 from forsaken cultivation. I would however observe that the coun- 

 tries in question are mountainous, very sterile, and thinly peopled 

 by unsettled tribes. The assertion of Linnaeus, which is accompanied 

 by no details, is that which deserves the least confidence, the more 

 so as the country of the Baschirs has been frequently visited within 

 a century. LinkH does not admit it. M. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps^l , 

 in a modern and special work, does not bring forward any new facts. 

 He states, with reason, that the primitive country of these species 

 may have originally been very extensive, but that cultivation having 

 been early established in Sicily, Greece, Syria, &c, it has always 

 been difficult to distinguish the wild specimens from those which 

 have escaped from cultivation. He adds, with still greater reason, 

 that if the Cerealia were different primitively from what they now 

 are — if, for instance, they had had the form of certain JEgylops or 

 Lolium, — man would never have had the idea of cultivating them. 

 The species must have been very much like what they now are to 

 have led to any being at the pains to sow them. Has any barbarous 

 people ever been observed to attempt the cultivation of iEgylops or 

 of darnel (Lolium temulentum) ? Naturalists may have the curiosity 

 to do so : the primitive peoples never had : it is much, indeed, that 

 they essayed to eat the grain of wheat, and to cultivate it, after 

 having ascertained its nutritious properties. 



In all the works above quoted, rye is not mentioned unless to 



* Lamarck, Diet. Ency„ Part. Bot. ii. 560. 

 || Voyage dans l'Empire Ottoman, iii. 460. 

 X Species Plantarum, 2nd edit. 126. 



§ Recherehes suv l'Histoire ancienne, I'origine et la patrie des Cereales, 

 Ann. Scien. Nat. Ser. 1. ix. 61. 



|| Die Urwelt und das Altertlmm, &c. ed. 2. p. 407. 

 % Considerations sur les GSreales, 1843, p. 22. 



