320 CEREAL PLANTS. Chap< ix . 



Finally, every one must judge for himself whether it is more 

 probable that the several forms of wheat, barley, rye, and oats 

 are descended from between ten and fifteen species, most of 

 which are now either unknown or extinct, or whether they are 

 descended from between four and eight species, which may I 



have either closely resembled our present cultivated forms, or 

 have been so widely different as to escape identification. In this f 



latter case we must conclude that man cultivated the cereals 

 at an enormously remote period, and that he formerly practised 

 some degree of selection, which in itself is not improbable. We 

 may, perhaps, further believe that, when wheat was first culti- 

 vated the ears and grains increased quickly in size, in the same 

 manner as the roots of the wild carrot and parsnip are known 

 to increase quickly in bulk under cultivation. 



Maize : Zea Mays.— Botanists are nearly unanimous that all the culti- 

 vated kinds belong to the same species. It is undoubtedly 4 ? of American 

 origin, and was grown by the aborigines throughout the continent 

 irom New England to Chili. Its cultivation must have been extremely 

 ancient, for Tschudi 48 describes two kinds, now extinct or not known 

 in Peru, which were taken from tombs apparently prior to the dynasty 

 of the Incas. But there is even stronger evidence of antiquity, for I 

 found on the coast of Peru 49 heads of maize, together with eighteen 

 species of recent sea-shell, embedded in a beach which had been upraised 

 at least 85 feet above the level of the sea. In accordance with this ancient 

 cultivation, numerous American varieties have arisen. The aboriginal 

 form has not as yet been discovered in the wild state. A peculiar kind, 50 

 in which the grains, instead of being naked, are concealed by husks as 

 much as eleven lines in length, has been stated on insufficient evidence 

 to grow wild in Brazil. It is almost certain that the aboriginal form 

 would have had its grains thus protected'; 51 but the seeds of the Brazilian 

 variety produce, as I hear from Professor Asa Gray, and as is stated in two 

 published accounts, either common or husked maize ; and it is not cre- 



4 7 See Alph. De Candolle's long dis- where an account is given of the result 

 cussion in his ' Geograph. Bot.,' p. 942. of sowing the seed. A young Guarany 

 With respect to New England, see Silli- Indian, on seeing this kind of maize, 

 man's 'American Journal,' vol. xliv.p.99. told Auguste St. Hilaire (see De Can- 



48 ' Travels in Peru,' Eng. translat., dolle, ' Geograph. Bot.,' p. 951) that it 

 p. 177. grew wild in the humid forests of Ins 



a 49 'Geolog. Observ. on S. America,' native land. Mr. Tescliemacher, in 



1846, p. 49. 'Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.,' Oct. 19th, 



50 This maize is figured in Bona- 1842, gives an account of sowing the 



fous' magnificent work, ' Hist. Nat. du seed. 



Mais,' 1836, PL v. bis, and in the 'Jour- • 51 Moquin - Tandon, 'Elements de 



nal of Hort. Soc.,' vol. i., 1846, p. 115, T&atologie,' 1841, p. 126. 



' 



