POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
1 9 
Jl u 
and with, its power of adaptation to very variable conditions, 
such as those of climate, soil, and modes of cultivation. 
Let us then start from the point of view afforded to us by an 
examination of the two more prominent English forms of wheat, 
which may be thus epitomised. Triticum liybernum — ear 
compact, smooth, or nearly so, beardless (smooth beardless 
wheats) . T. vulgare — ear more or less hairy, with beard 
(awn) of greater or lesser length (hairy, bearded, or cone 
wheats). Of these there are so many varieties, that it would 
be almost impossible to enumerate them. Commencing then 
with these, we have to premise that, although their extreme 
differences are so great, yet they, after all, merge into each 
other; and we are justified in concluding that, as the sorts of 
wheat differ so much among themselves, the cultivated wheat- 
plant is derived from a wild grass. It may be remarked also, 
that nowhere is the wheat-plant found wild in any form at all 
resembling any cultivated variety. However, to quote the 
language of Mi 1 . Bentliam, in “ Morton’s Cyclopaedia of Agri- 
culture,” article Triticum : — 
“ It has never been contended that their original types have become 
extinct, and various, therefore, have been the conjectures as to the trans- 
formations they may have successively undergone ; and as no accidental 
returns towards primitive forms have been observed, we have, till lately, had but 
little to guide us in these vague surmises. Within the last few years, however, 
the experiments and observations of M. Esprit Fabre, of Agde, in the South 
of France, seem to prove a fact which had been more than once suggested, 
but almost always scouted, that our agricultural wheats are cultivated 
varieties of a set of grasses common in the South of Europe, which botanists 
have uniformly regarded as belonging to a different genus, named TEgilops. 
The principal character by which the latter genus had been distinguished, 
consisted in the greater fragility of the ear, and in the glumes (i. e. the chaff- 
scales) being generally terminated by three or four, and the pales by two or 
three points or awns (beards). But M. Fabre lias shown how readily these 
characters become modified by cultivation ; and wide as is the apparent 
difference between EEgilojJs ovata and common wheat, he has practically 
proved their botanical identity ; for, from the seeds of the JEgilopts first sown 
in 1838, carefully raised in a garden soil, and resown every year, from their 
produce, lie had, through successive transformations, by the eighth year 
(1846) obtained crops of real wheat as good as the generality of those culti- 
vated in his neighbourhood.” 
A paper on this interesting subject, by M. Fabre himself, will 
be found in the “Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 
England,” the following note upon which, from the pen of Pro- 
fessor Dunal, will not be devoid of interest : — • 
“ The foregoing observations show that sE. ovata (L.), is capable of being 
extremely modified under certain circumstances. Whilst its floral envelopes 
lose their width and some of their awns, and thus become like those of 
Triticum, their stems, leaves, and ears become more and more developed, 
and at length acquire all the characters of wheat. The necessary inference 
is, that some, if not all, cultivated Tritica are peculiar forms of TEgilops, and 
