BRITISH CEREALS. 31 



The first florets to open are more than halt-way up the spike, 

 the next those immediately above and below the first morning's 

 ring, and so on until the whole spikeful have contributed their 

 share, and, as we have just said, in many cases fertilised themselves. 

 Barley keeps its florets open longer than Wheat, and opens more 

 at a time, so that the spike does not take so long to complete its 

 pollination, but in more cases than not the florets do not open at all, 

 and every one is fertilised from its own anthers. 



When the grain ripens — and in many cases before by those 

 experienced in such matters — we are in a position to say to 

 what sub-species or variety the plant may be assigned. These 

 are many, except with Rye, which we only know as Winter Rye, 

 Summer Rye, and Midsummer Rye, according to the time of 

 sowing, and is so unimportant in this country that it need not 

 trouble us. We should note, however, that it has not been so 

 long under cultivation as the other three, and though it is an 

 annual, it is a perennial by recent descent, which the others do 

 not seem to be. Wheat, when sown in the autumn, does not 

 ripen and die until the following year, and when kept cut or 

 well cropped by grazing, with plenty of room to branch, remains 

 alive for two years or more. But we can hardly call it a perennial, 

 as the ancestral species of Rye, Secale montanum of South Eastern 

 Europe and Western Asia, undoubtedly is, though in its cultivated 

 forms — 5. cereale, and the less common S. fragile of Hungary — it 

 has almost lost this characteristic, which is occasionally apparent 

 when the stubble sprouts again after being left long in the ground. 



Oats cannot be so briefly dismissed. Apparently the cul- 

 tivated forms, one of them found in the Swiss lake dwellings 

 and therefore of the Stone Age, arose from the Wild Oat, A vena 

 'atua, but the pedigree is not convincing. Nowadays we have 

 tw r o main races, the Panicled Oat, A. saliva, and the Banner or 

 Tartarian Oat, A. orientalis, with the panicle contracted and 

 one-sided. Besides these we have the Chinese Oat, A. chinensis, 

 belonging to the Panicled group ; and A . nuda, the Naked Oat ; 

 A . brevis, the Short Oat ; and A . strigosa, the Hairy or Bristle 

 Oat, belonging to the Tartarian group. 



Neither the Naked Oat nor the Chinese Oat seem to have 



