136 THE FLORIST AND 



they agree in inflorescence, in the multitude of flowers, and in the general 

 form and texture of the parts of fructification, differ in this respect, that 

 the glumes in JEgilops are more swollen, that the upper spikelets are abor- 

 tive, containing no ovaries but only stamens, and that the fruit, instead of 

 being convex on either side, as in wheat, is concave. The presence and 

 number of the awns is inconstant in either genus, and in a species or form of 

 iEgilops which Requien found in Provence, and named M. triticoides, but 

 which occurs in Sicily, at Palermo, as appears from specimens now before 

 me, and, if as I believe, Link's Crithodium iEgilopoides (Linnsea ix. 132, 

 t. 3) be the same thing, in Greece also, the glumes are gradually flatter, so 

 that their form, especially as at the same time there is but one awn instead 

 of several, approaches very closely to that in the genus Triticum. Fabre, 

 whose attention was attracted by this phenomenon, undertook in conse- 

 quence, a series of experiments with M. ovata, which he cultivated with the 

 greatest care for 12 years, from 1838 to 1850, and at first in a plot of 

 ground inclosed by walls, in which no other species of grass existed ; and 

 afterwards in the open field, surrounded however by vineyards. The result 

 of this experiment was that the plant acquired longer ears, whose rachis 

 was not brittle as before when ripe, and in which, step by step, fewer 

 blossoms were abortive ; the glumes, meanwhile, were less broad and flatter ; 

 instead of a number of awns, in general one only remained ; and the ripe 

 grain, which in consequence of its concave form, remained inclosed in the 

 hollowed glume, burst out by reason of its increased thickness. In brief, 

 the species iEgilops ovata had acquired a form, represented in the figures, 

 which every one must recognize as that of a Triticum, and which in con- 

 tinued cultivation was retained without any tendency to return to its original 

 condition. M. JFabre observed also, that M. triaristata, Willd. was subject 

 to the same metamorphoses, only he became acquainted with this species too 

 late to make the same experiments with it which he had made with M. 

 ovata, so as to be able to prove its transition into Triticum. His treatise 

 closes with these words : " We had here also (instead of iEgilops ovata with 

 which the experiment was commenced) a Triticum, a true species of wheat, 

 which cultivated in the open field for four successive years, retained in its 

 form and yielded harvest like other corn of this kind ;" and M. Dunal adds, 

 " We are in consequence necessitated to allow, that certain of our cultivated 

 kinds of wheat, if not all, are nothing more than peculiar forms of certain 

 species of iEgilops, and that they can be regarded as none other than races 

 of these species, so that to M. Esprit Fabre belongs the honor of having 



