THE "WILD "WHEAT OF PALESTINE 291 



be discarded and tliat it should be replaced by Triticum 

 hermonis. This proposed change in nomenclature not 

 only gives to wild wheat the status of an independent 

 species which is its just due, but also serves to commemo- 

 rate the spot — Mount Hermon — where the first ear was 

 collected. In future, therefore, we shall refer to the 

 wild wheat as Triticum hermonis. 



Specimens of Triticum hermonis were brought from 

 Palestine to the United States by Aaronsohn, with the 

 result that at various experimental stations in that coun- 

 try plots of ground are now sown annually with the new 

 cereal. The wild wheat has also found its way to west- 

 ern Canada and has been grown by Professor Harrison 

 at the Agricultural College at Winnipeg and by Professor 

 W. P. Thompson on the campus of the University of 

 Saskatchewan at Saskatoon. I visited Professor Thomp- 

 son in the summer of 1918 in order to become acquainted 

 with the nature of his cereal investigations and, of course, 

 was shown his little plot of Triticum hermonis. With 

 what interest and delight did he and I examine the new- 

 comer from Palestine, noting its grass-like habit, its rela- 

 tively short straw, and its bending long-bearded heads, 

 with their primitive and admirable arrangements for 

 scattering the grains ; and with what wonder did we reflect 

 upon the possibility that there, at last, before our own 

 eyes, was the very species from which had sprung all the 

 Marquis and Red Fife which, all over the West, even 

 then, was ripening unto harvest. Evidently we were in 

 the presence of a virile vegetable, not dependent for its 

 propagation, as are our cultivated wheats, upon the pam- 

 pering attentions of mankind, but well fitted by its struc- 

 ture and functions to maintain itself in its native habitat 

 from generation to generation in open competition with 

 the rest of the plant world. 



