170 
Origin of Wheat. 
The cars of iI*]gilops are coriaceous, and remain entire 
year after year without being decomposed ; they merely become 
black as they get old. The grains of these ears do not fall 
from tlieir envelopes, but, when arrived at maturity, the ears 
break off from the top of the stem, fall upon the ground, and 
produce the next year new plants which spring from the whole 
ear; the spikelets do not separate from the latter, nor do the 
grains droj) out from the spikelets. This may be seen from the 
specimens represented in fig. 1, A. 
The ^^gilops are quick -growing plants ; they germinate with 
the first showers in autumn, and emit, as we have said, 3 radicles 
from beneath the cotyledon. 
When the ears begin to appear, it may be easily seen that 
the grains enclosed in the spikelets of the old ear on the 
ground produce two kinds of plants {see fig. 1, A.) : the one kind 
terminating in shorter and more compact ears, and the other in 
ears which are much larger and of a very different form. The 
first are y3J. ovata, and the second jE. triticoides. 
The spikelets whose grains exhibit this phenomenon are in- 
serted on the same axis, and are consequently part of the same 
ear and belong to the same individual plant. Tlie roots of the 
young plants shoot into the same soil, whence they obtain the 
same alimentary matters ; nevertheless, the individuals called 
triticoides become the most highly developed, and assume dif- 
ferent forms in all their parts. 
All the parts mentioned above are represented in fig. J , A. 
It is clear from these observations that the grains of ovata, 
L., yield two sets of plants, viz. those described under the name 
of jE. ovata, and those which Requien and Bertoloni thought a 
distinct species, and named triticoides. 
This is not all. Another species of ^gilops, yE. triaris- 
tata, Willd., also yields the triticoid form, distinguishable, how- 
ever, from that produced by ovata. The ears of yE. tri- 
ticoides obtained from yS. oiiata are glaucous and many-flowered 
in their spikelets, have more flowers, and are packed closer to 
each other ; whilst the ears of yE. triticoides, yielded by y£^. tri- 
aristata, are yellow, sometimes become blackish brown, and are 
besides alternate-flowered, and are formed of spikelets with fewer 
flowers, tolerably distant from each other, and so arranged that 
their alternation is very distinct. 
The species of vEgilops are common in the south of Europe, 
and probably in the whole basin of the Mediterranean. They 
inhabit flat, hot, dry plains. I found some of ovata presenting 
at the same time both the form characteristic of this species and 
that of the triticoides, in an uncultivated volcanic soil, with a 
subsoil consisting entirely of porous lava ; it is the hottest and 
