14 • THE EOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



WHEAT 



Let us look first at a single grain of wheat, out 

 of the bagful the farmer is about to sow, or the 

 miller is about to pour into the hopper, to grind 

 into flour. It is an oval body with a deep crease 

 running lengthwise on one side, a tuft of fine hairs 

 at the tip, and the chit, or embryo, at the base, and 

 directly opposite to the groove. From this chit 

 the wheat plant rises. Stored under the protect- 

 ing coats of the grain are the food elements that 

 are to nourish the little plant until its own leaves 

 and roots are able to support it independently. 

 The baby plant and its lunch basket are wrapped 

 up in the grain we are looking at. 



Without a microscope it will be difficult for us 

 to make out the various coats that wrap the store 

 of starch that forms 93 per cent, of the kernel's 

 bulk. Six per cent, of it is the embryo, with its 

 shield that protects and absorbs food for the 

 minute plantlet, whose root and stem are visible 

 when the grain is soaked. The seed wrappings 

 form the remaining i per cent, of the whole. 



A thin skin, the epidermis, covers the grain. 

 Four coats under the skin compose the bran, the 

 third f rom the outside being the coloring matter 

 which gives the brown tinge to whole wheat flour. 



