120 
NATURE NOTES. 
Egyptians draw their supply of this grain?” In 1846 the 
late Professor ]. S. Henslow received six grains from Mr. 
Tupper, from the plant raised by him. He grew them with 
several other varieties of wheat in an experimental border in 
his garden ; the following are his observations : — “ This variety 
was specially remarkable for its exceeding length of straw and 
for flowering much earlier than anj' of the other varieties in my 
garden. In this and in all other particulars I could not observe 
the slightest difference between an ear of the Bellevue Talavera, 
and that of the supposed mummy wheat. Both were also attacked 
more vigorously than others by rust and mildew.” Suspecting’ 
some flaw in the testimony, application was made to Sir G. Wil- 
kinson himself for a genuine sample, that it might be tried among 
a series of experiments on the vitality of seeds, which were at 
that time in progress under the superintendence of a committee 
of the British Association. 
On receipt of the sample, great surprise was felt at the dis- 
covery of fragments of grains of maize (of American origin) 
intermixed with the grains of mummy wheat ! This, of course, 
led to further inquiry ; and the conclusion arrived at was that 
the sample had most certainly been vitiated by the wheat having 
been placed in the common corn jars of Cairo ! 
It may be added that whenever on other occasions the actual 
grains of true mummy wheat have been carefully sown, the)'' 
have never germinated. Thus, M. Denon, who accompanied 
Buonaparte’s expedition to Egypt, tried to raise them in many 
ways, but he never succeeded. A Dr. Steele also utterly failed 
in 1857. In fact a microscopic examination proves that the 
embryo is always destroyed, a section crumbling to powder 
under the microscope, though the starch grains are not decom- 
posed, and still colour violet as usual with iodine. 
The popular confusion between “ Mummy ” wheat and 
“ Egyptian ” wheat is easily explained. There is a not very 
rare variety of “ Revets’ ” wheat, which is “ proliferous,” that 
is to say, it bears two or more additional smaller ears at the 
base, in consequence of the lower “ spikelets ” growing out and 
becoming supplementary ears. This is supposed to resemble 
the ears described in Genesis (xli. 5), and has consequently re- 
ceived the popular name of “ Egyptian ” wheat. The reports 
of “mummy” wheat from Egypt having been grown in this 
country has thus given rise to the idea that this variety of 
Revets’ was actually raised from the old grains brought from 
the tombs of Egypt. But as Prof. Henslow remarked, if Mr. 
Tupper’s experiments were trustworthy, the old Egyptian wheat 
must have been identical with the Bellevue Talavera, and not at 
all like our modern “ Egyptian ” or the proliferous variety of 
Revets’. 
Finally, it may be noticed that wheat, in this country at 
least, is well-known to agriculturalists to be particularly short 
lived. “An old farmer” writing to the Gardeners' Chronicle 
