TRITICUM HYBERNUM.-WINTER OR COMMON WHEAT. 
Class III. TRIANDRIA.— Order II. DIGYNIA. 
Natural Order GRAMINE^E. THE GRASS TRIBE. 
(a) Ervum Hirsutum.* 
Culm jointed, three feet high ; dark green smooth leaves ; spikes long and close, the lower flowers imper- 
fect; the calyx containing generally four flowers ; valves of the corolla generally smooth, but in some of the 
varieties terminated by awns ; nectaries small, fringed and silky. Its varieties are white and red lammas 
wheat, without awns ; white and red bearded wheat. The corn, or grain-bearing plants, are styled the ce- 
realia, from Ceres, the goddess of corn. That one, however, on which any people chiefly depend for their 
food is called corn by them ; as wheat is in England, oats in the northern lowlands of Scotland, rye in the 
sandy districts on the southern shores of the Baltic sea, and maize throughout the United States of America. 
They are all made annuals, both in their stems and roots, the whole plant dying after the seed has been 
completely formed and ripened, and sometimes even before the latter process has fully taken place. 
When the seed is perfectly ripe, the vessels separate, the point of separation speedily heals, the grain 
may then be easily threshed out from the chaff in which it had lain buried, and sometimes it sheds itself 
spontaneously. 
The corculum, “little heart,” or germ, contains a principle, which, if rightly managed, can produce, 
not only a plant of wheat, but plant after plant, until, in the course of a few harvests, its progeny would 
become capable of feeding a nation. Thus, notwithstanding the ravages of war, the vital principle of vege- 
tation, destined for the chief support of the human race, has not been lost, but it has remained to man, like 
fire, which he alone has subjected to his use, to be called forth at his bidding, and to contribute to his sup- 
port, comfort, and prosperity. One circumstance connected with the increase of the cereal grains is very 
singular. An insect deposits its eggs in the very core of the primary shoot of the wheat, so that it is com- 
pletely destroyed by the larvae or grubs ; and did not the plant possess within itself the means of repairing 
the injury, the care and toil of the husbandman would be lost. But happening, as it does, in the spring, 
shoots immediately grow forth from the knots, the plant becomes more firmly rooted, and produces, pro- 
bably a dozen stems and ears, where, hut for the temporary mischief, it might have yielded only one. The 
inherent power of multiplication possessed by vegetables is indeed most extraordinary. On the 2nd of 
June, 1766, Mr. Miller, of Cambridge, sowed some grains of the common red wheat, and, on the 8th of 
August, a single plant was taken up, and divided into eighteen parts, and each part planted separately. A 
second division produced sixty-seven plants, and a third amounted to five hundred. They were then divided 
no farther ; and some of them produced upwards of one hundred ears from a single root, many of which 
measured seven inches in length, and contained between sixty and seventy grains. The whole number of 
ears which, by this process, were produced from one grain of wheat, was twenty-one thousand one hundred 
and nine ; which yielded three pecks and three quarters of clear corn ; the weight of which was forty-seven 
pounds, seven ounces ; and the whole number of grains was about five hundred and seventy-six thousand, 
eight hundred and forty; In this case, there was only one general division of the plants made in the spring; 
had a second taken place, Mr. Miller thinks the number of plants would have amounted to two thousand ! 
In the early books of Scripture, we often read of corn, and of Ruth gleaning with the maidens of Boaz, 
“unto the end of barley-harvest, and of wheat-harvest/’ Pliny says, that in the champaigne country about 
Byzacium in Africa, wheat had been known to yield a hundred and fifty fold. He mentions that a procu- 
rator-general of that province, under Augustus Caesar, sent the emperor from thence a plant of wheat which 
had nearly four hundred straws springing from one grain, and meeting in one and the same root. Sicily is 
said to he the first country in Europe where grain was cultivated. Ceres was not only worshipped in that 
island, but is often represented on the ancient Sicilian coins ; and garlands of ears were offered to her before 
they began to reap. At what period wheat was first cultivated in England is only matter of conjecture. 
Caesar found corn growing on the coast, but of what kind we are not informed. Other seeds are dispersed 
through the earth by winds and currents, in the hairy coats of quadrupeds, and in the maws of birds. But 
the corn-plants are said, in common with many other important vegetable productions, to follow the course 
of man alone. Even hostile armies have been instruments of their diffusion. Cortez, the inhuman con- 
* From the Celtic erw, a ploughed field, of which it is the pest ; or, from eruo, Gr. to pluck out ; as necessary to be eradicated from the 
growing corn ; to separate the tares from the wheat. 
This is a very troublesome weed in corn-fields ; in wet seasons whole crops have been overpowered and wholly destroyed by it ; 
hence it is sometimes called Strangle Tare. All sorts of cattle will eat it. The seeds when ground in flour affect it with a strong dis- 
agreeable flavour, 
Dr. Withering observes, that the Tine Tares ( E. hirsutum, ) not only illustrate the old adage, that “ill weeds grow apace,” hut 
that they likewise increase by superabundant fertility ; for it appears from experiment, that a single seed will, by the produce of one plant 
only, multiply itself a thousand fold in a very short time. 
