156 



Genus 42. TKITICUM. Wheat, and Wheat Grass. 



Gen. Char. Inflorescence compact, spicate. Spikelets solitary, 

 sessile on opposite sides of the channeled, more or less distinctly 

 jointed and toothed rachis, two- or three- to many-flowered ; com- 

 pressed or somewhat turgid, their sides directed towards the 

 rachis. Glumes two, opposite, carinate, acute or mucronate, 

 nearly equal. False two ; the outer one acuminate, or awned ; 

 the inner bifid at the apex. 



The species, about twenty-five in number, are widely distributed 

 over the northern and central countries of the eastern continent, but 

 are 'not found in the opposite hemisphere, unless where introduced by 

 European cultivation. The genus includes the cultivated wheats, of 

 which there are numerous varieties, and perhaps some very distinct 

 species, valued almost exclusively on account of their grain, which 

 affords the most nutritive of all vegetable food ; all of these are an- 

 nuals : others, usually denominated wheat grasses, are mostly peren- 

 nial, useful in the general economy of nature, some as colonizers, others 

 as contributing to the support of herbivorous animals collectively, but 

 by the farmer regarded as mere weeds, being ill adapted to agricultural 

 purposes. 



The generic name, that of the common wheat, among Latin writers, 

 bears allusion to the process of threshing or beating by which the grain 

 is separated from the ears or spikes, or to that of grinding to reduce it 

 to the state of flour. 



The genus is divided by some modern botanists into two sections, 

 Triticum, the true cereal wheats, and Agropyron, the wheat-grasses, 

 some of the latter only are strictly indigenous, not to these islands 

 alone, but to Europe collectively. 



Triticum. Linnceus. 



Annual. Spikelets more or less ventricose and turgid. Glumes 

 and palese ovate or oblong. 



Triticum sativum. Common cultivated Wheat. Plate CXXVII. 

 and CXXVIII. 



Spike imbricated, four-cornered. Spikelets usually four-flowered. 

 Glumes ventricose, ovate, truncate, mucronate, compressed below the 

 apex, convex on the back with a prominent midvein. 



Triticum vulgare of some authors. Triticum sestivum, hybernum, &c., 

 Wildenorv. 



