TRITICUM HYBERNUM. 
309 
but large quantities of this grain are cultivated for the purpose of 
converting into malt, for making beer, and for the distillation of 
ardent spirit. Pearl barley when boiled forms a nourishing article 
of diet, and a decoction of it is much used as a diluent drink in 
febrile and acute diseases, and when acidulated, is preferable to 
most others. 
Off. The Seeds. 
Off. Pp. Decoctum Hordei, L. E. D. 
Hordei Compositum, L. D. 
TRITICUM HYBERNUM. 
Winter Wheat * 
Class Triandria. — Order Monogynia. 
Nat. Ord. Gramina. 
Gen. Char. CaZya; two-valved, solitary, subtriflorous. Flower 
somewhat obtuse. 
Spec. Char. Calyx four-flowered, tumid, smooth, imbricated, 
with little or no awns. 
The native country of this valuable plant is entirely unknown, but 
it has been thought, from the nature and habit of wheat, that it might 
have been originally an inhabitant of Asia ; however that may be, it 
appears pretty certain that its cultivation in Europe commenced in 
Sicily, and spread from thence to the southern parts, and as far north 
as 62°, beyond which it will not vegetate. Several varieties of this 
grain are cultivated in Britain, but the winter or lammas wheat is the 
most valuable and esteemed, as affording the finest kind of flour. 
The root of lammas wheat consists of many downy fibres ;t the 
^stems are jointed, from three to four feet high, and terminated by 
• Fig. d. the germen and caljx, magnified, e. The flower, expanded and magnified. 
+ This plant has two sets of roots, one set proceeding directly from the seed, and 
the other from what is called the corona of the plant, aboat two inches above the first: 
the latter do not shoot till spring time, and collect more nutriment than the seminal 
roots. 
