109 
T R I T I C U M. 
forest; so that he cannot be compelled to hold a dog, follow 
the chape, nor stand at the place appointed, which otherwise 
he might be, under pain of amercement. 
TRISU'LC, 5 . [i trisulcus , Latin.] A thing of three 
points.—Consider the threefold effect of Jupiter’s trisulc, 
to burn, discuss, and terebrate. Brown. 
TRISU'LCATE, adj. Having three points or forks. 
Sons of him 
That hurls the bolt trisulcatc. Old Ballad. 
TRISYLLA'BICAL, adj. Consisting of three syllables. 
TRISY'LLABLE, s. [trisyllaba, Latin.] A word con¬ 
sisting of three syllables. 
TRITE, adj. [tritus, Latin.] Worn out; stale; com¬ 
mon ; not new. 
She gives her tongue no moment’s rest, 
In phrases batter’d, stale, and trite. 
Which modern ladies call polite. Swift. 
TRI'TELY, adv. In a trite or common way. 
TRITENESS, s. Staleness; commonness.—The scarcity 
of sermons, which, while they preach the Gospel to the poor, 
disgust not the fastidious ear of modern elegance by tr iteness 
or vulgarity, has long been a subject of regret and of com¬ 
plaint. Wrangham. 
TRI'THEISM, s. [.tritheisme , Fr.; r pen; and Seo?, Gr.] 
The opinion which holds three distinct gods.—Dr. Sherlock 
is certainly clear from the charge of tritheism. Bp. Bull. 
TRI'THEIST, s. One who maintains tritheism.—I will 
lay together the several theses which he hath undertaken to 
defend against both Arians and Socinians on one hand, as 
also against Sabellians and tritheists on the other. Nelson. 
TRITHEI'STIC, adj. Relating to tritheism.—Reprint¬ 
ing exploded frifheistic notions. South. 
TRITHEMIUS (John, Abbot,) was born in the year 
1442, at the village of Trittenheim, near Treves, whence he 
took his name. Having finished his course of education in 
the universities of Treves and Heidelberg, he was chosen 
abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Spanheim in 1483, 
which he superintended for twenty-two years, and when he 
withdrew from it in consequence of a faction of the monks, 
he was placed by the bishop of Wurtzburg at the head of a 
monastery in that city, where he died in 1518, at the age of 
seventy-six. “ Trithemius,” says one of his biographers, 
“ was a person of vast erudition, a philosopher, mathe¬ 
matician, chemist, poet, historian, and divine, and conversant 
in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages.” His works, 
written in Latin, are numerous, but those in biography and 
history are held in the highest estimation. Otherwise, “ he 
appears to have been a person whose great learning was con¬ 
siderably tinctured with credulity, and whose industry was 
superior to his judgment.” Dupin. Gen. Biog. 
TRI'THING, s. [cpiSmja, Sax., whence triding, riding; 
which see.] The trithing contains three or four hundreds, or 
the third part of a shire or province. Cancel. —It is now re¬ 
tained only in Yorkshire, in its three ridings. 
TRI'TICAL, adj. [from tritus, Latin.] Trite ; common ; 
worn out.—He appears from a tritical philosophy to have 
carried his uncommon credulity, and a peculiar propensity to 
the marvellous, into our British, Roman, and Dano-Saxon 
archaeology. Warton. 
TRI'TICALNESS, s. Triteness.—Where there is not a 
iriticalness or mediocrity in the thought, it can never be 
sunk into the genuine and perfect bathos hy the most elabo¬ 
rate low expression. Arbuthnot and Pope. 
TRITICUM [Latin q. tritum, vel quod ex spieis tritu- 
rando facile excutiatur. In Greek, irvoo<;, q. errupo?, from 
c-wopo?, seed], in Botany, a genus of the class triandria, order 
digynia, natural order of gramina, gramineae or grasses.— 
Generic Character, (’alyx : a common receptacle elongated 
into a spike. Glume two-valved, subtriflorous; valves ovate, 
bluntish, concave. Corolla two-valved, nearly equal, size 
of the calyx ; exterior valve ventricose, blunt with a point; 
interior valve flat. Nectary two-leaved ; leaflets acute, gib¬ 
bous at the base. Stamina : filaments three, capillary. An- 
Vol. XXIV. No. 1630. 
thers oblong, forked. Pistil: germ turbinate. Styles two ’ 
capillary, reflexed. Stigmas feathered. Pericarp none. 
Corolla fosters the seed, opens and drops it. Seed one, 
ovate-oblong, blunt at both ends, convex on one side, 
grooved on the other .—Essential Character. Calyx two- 
valved, solitary, subtriflorous (or many-flowered, on a flex- 
uose toothed rachis.) Corolla blunt with a point. 
I.—Annual. Corn or Grain.* 
1. Triticum cestivum, summer or spring wheat.—Calyxes 
four-flowered, ventricose, smooth, imbricate, awned. This 
will ripen much earlier, and therefore has been often sown 
in the spring, at the same time with oats; but if the season 
should prove wet, it is very subject to grow tall, and to 
have very thin grains; so that unless from the severity of 
the winter, or some other accident, the winter corn has been 
injured, the practice of sowing spring wheat is rarely 
used. 
2. Triticum hybernum, winter or lammas wheat.—Calyxes 
four-flowered, ventricose, even, imbricate, with little or no 
awns. Common or winter wheat has long ears or spikes, 
with the grains ranged in four rows, and imbricate; the 
chaff smooth, ventricose or bellied, and not terminated by 
awns or beards. The last character however is not constant, 
for winter or lammas wheat has frequently short awns, 
but they never grow to the length of those in spring wheat. 
Wheat being subject to the severity of winter, its roots are 
wonderfully disposed to withstand the inclemency of the 
season. The first, or seminal root, is pushed out at the same 
time with the germ; and that, together with the meal, 
“nourishes the plant, until it has formed the crown. When 
this has become sufficiently large, it detaches a number of 
strong fibres, which push themselves obliquely downwards. 
These are the coronal roots. A small pipe preserves the 
communication between them and the seminal roots. It 
makes an essential part of the plant, and is observed to he 
longer or shorter, according to the depth at which the seed 
has been buried. The crown however is always formed just 
within the surface; and its place is the same, whether the 
grain has been sown deep or superficially. As the increase 
and fructification of the plant depends upon the vigorous ab¬ 
sorption of the coronal roots, it is no wonder that they should 
fix themselves so near the surface, where the soil is always the 
richest. The stalk, straw, or culm as Linnaeus calls it, is three 
feet high at a medium, jointed, cespitose, or in tufts; seventy- 
two have been known to issue from one root. Leaves 
smooth, three lines wide; much more, and of a very dark 
green in good ground. Spike close, weighty, several inches 
in length. The lower flowers imperfect, as is commonly 
the case in this order of plants. The glumes or chaffs of the 
calyx are ovate-lanceolate, and end in a point like a short 
awn ; they contain for the most part each four flowers, but 
there are sometimes only three, and sometimes five or six, 
but then one or more of these fall off without producing any 
grain. The two glumes or chaffs of the corolla are equal, 
but the outer one puts forth an awn a little below the tip, an 
inch or two inches in length ; sometimes however there is 
none; the inner one is hollow, awnless, and two-toothed, 
between these lies the seed or grain, which is villose, and the 
largest of its congeners. The nectaries are small, fringed, 
and silky. 
Varieties .—The principal varieties of winter wheat are, 
the white and red lammas and red Kentish without awns, 
and the red and white bearded wheat. Of these there are 
innumerable subordinate varieties, of which those most es¬ 
teemed are the Taunton-dean, Egg-shell, Hedge-wheat, Essex 
white, Essex dun, Hertfordshire white, and brown, and velvet 
ears: though in the midland counties there is no sort pre¬ 
ferred to the brown lammas. 
3. Triticum compositum, or many-spiked wheat.—Spike 
compound; spikdets clustered, awned. Linnaeus’s account 
of the many-spiked wheat is, that it is allied to the summer 
or spring wheat, but that the spike is four times as large 
and a hand in length, formed of spikelets in two rows, alter¬ 
nate, approximating, from nine to twelve, the lower ones 
2 F shorter. 
