CEREAL GRASSES. 17 



spikes and the numerous awns on the glumes and 

 palese. But M. Fabre demonstrates how readily these 

 peculiarities become modified by cultivation, and he 

 practically proves the identity of the plants, wide as 

 seem to the partial observer their apparent differences. 

 Seeds of the ^Effilops were sown in a garden in 1838, 

 and the produce resown each year until 1846, when as 

 good wheat was produced from the crop as that in any 

 of the fields in the neighbourhood. 



All the cultivated wheats must be included, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Baker's showing, in his article in the ' Agri- 

 cultural Cyclopaedia/ under the one species Triticum 

 vulgare, the characteristics of which are the spiked in- 

 florescence, imbricated spikelets, each containing two or 

 more perfect flowers, and a terminal barren one; outer 

 and flowering glumes ovate, with a blunt notch at the 

 top on each side of the awn, and the grain when ripe 

 separating more or less readily from the chaff. 



The varieties of wheat are much more numerous than 

 of any other description of grain, — the result, no doubt, 

 of the greater range of climates in which it has been 

 cultivated. Mr. Lawson, of Edinburgh, enumerates 

 thirty-seven " whitish beardless varieties," twenty " red- 

 dish beardless varieties," and six " tinged varieties ;" 

 these, with twenty added afterwards as " whitish and 

 reddish bearded varieties," make in all eighty-three 

 kinds of wheat in cultivation in the British Isles. 



Triticum vulgare, var. muticum (Common Beardless 

 Wheat — T. Hypericum of Linnseus) has a compact ear, no 

 awns, and hollow straw; it may be considered as the 

 head of the family of Whitish Bearded varieties, some 

 of the most highly recommended of which are — 



Pearl Wheat, with long, stiff, white straw, medium- 



c 



