T It I T I C U M: 
no 
shorter, but the upper one single. Chaffs smooth, keeled. 
Awns a hand in length.—It is said to be a native of Egypt, 
at least it is cultivated there, as it is also about Naples, in 
Other parts of Italy, and in the south of France. 
4. Triticum turgidum, gray pollard or duck-bill wheat.— 
Calyxes four-flowered, ventricose, villose, imbricate, obtuse. 
This is called gray wheat, duck-bill wheat, and gray pollard, 
in Sussex fuller’s wheat; (in other places bearded wheat, 
dun over, rivets, pole orpoll-rivet, red poll-rivet, square-gray, 
pendulum, yeograve, &c.) It has two varieties: viz. cone 
wheat, and Barbary wheat. 
5. Triticum Polonicum, Polish or Poland wheat.—Calyxes 
two-flowered, naked ; florets with very long awns; teeth of 
the rachis bearded. The Polonian wheat grows tall, and the 
ears are long and heavy, so that where it is sown too thick 
it is very subject to be lodged, on which account it is little 
regarded; but since it produces much flour it is worthy of 
cultivation. 
6. Triticum spelta, or spelt wheat.—Calyxes four-flow¬ 
ered, truncate; florets awned, hermaphrodite, the middle 
one neuter. Spelt has a stout straw that is almost solid. 
Spikes strong, white.—It is much culthated in many of the 
southern countries of Europe. In the south of France they 
call it epeaute blanche, and sow it in spring; it ripens in 
July and August; it requires strong land, and they esteem it 
to be very useful in destroying weeds, to which the stoutness 
of the straw is well adapted. Spelt is supposed ro be the 
Zea of the Greeks, and the Far of the Romans. 
7. Triticum monococcum, or one grained wheat.—Ca¬ 
lyxes subtriflorous, the first awned, the middle one sterile. 
This one-grained wheat is sown in autumn, before the com¬ 
mon sort, and yet ripens later; it is therefore longer in the 
ground than any other, and continues a whole year, or even 
more in the mountains. It is less subject to smut than com¬ 
mon wheat. The straw is excellent for thatching. The 
flour is used for the same purposes as spelt; but is of a better 
quality: the bread made of it is light, though brown ; but 
its great excellence is for gruel. 
II.—Annual Grasses. 
8. Triticum Hispanicum, or Spanish wheat-grass.—Ca¬ 
lyxes six-flowered; florets all directed the same way, awned 
at the tip. This is an annual grass, scarcely a span in height. 
—Native of Spain. 
9. Triticum prostratum, or trailing wheat-grass.—Spike 
ovate, compressed, bifarious; glumes both of calyx and 
corolla smooth ; awns shorter than the floret. Thisalsoisan 
annual grass.—Native the Caspian deserts, in the driest soil. 
10. Triticum pumilum, or d warf wheat-grass.—Spike ovate; 
glumes somewhat awned, those of the calyx two-grooved. 
This is a small annual species.—Native of Siberia. 
III.—Perennial Grasses; except 16, 17, 18. 
11. Triticum junceum, or rushy sea wheat-grass.—Ca¬ 
lyxes five-flowered, truncate; leaves rolled in, mucronate- 
pungent. Root perennial, creeping The whole plant very 
glaucous; the lower part of the stem however is of a more 
or less vivid violet hue and very smooth and shining. 
Leaves rigid and sharply pungent, perfectly smooth at the 
back; their upper side marked with numerous longitudinal 
rough furrows. Stipulas very short. Spike solitary, erect, 
straight and stiff, much broader in proportion to its length 
than" that of any other British triticum, and consisting of 
numerous alternate flat spikelets, of five or six florets each, 
perfectly smooth and beardless. The glumes are furrowed 
and blunt; the interior valve of the corolla flat and fringed. 
_Native of Europe, the Levant, Siberia, and Barbary. There 
are two varieties. 
12. Triticum distichum.—Calyxesi four-flowered, smooth, 
awnless; flowers distich; leaves filiform.—Native of the 
Cape of Good Hope. 
13. Triticum repens, or creeping wheat-grass, quick, 
quich, twitch, couch, or dog’s-grass.—Calyxes five-flowered, 
awl-shaped, many-nerved; florets acuminate; leaves flat ; 
root creeping. Root perennial, creeping very much, jointed, 
coated; fibres downy. This troublesome and pernicious 
weed is too well known to farmers and gardeners, under the 
names of quich, quitch, squitch, twitch, couch and scutch- 
grass, all evidently corrupted from quick, which signifies 
living, and is a term well appropriated to this grass, because 
every particle of the root will grow. In Scotland and the 
north of England, it has the appellation of quickens. In some 
counties it is called spear-grass and dog’s-grass.—It must be 
observed, that farmers call any perennial grass with creeping 
roots, that infest arable land, by this name. This pest of 
the husbandman and gardener is not however without its 
use. At Naples the roots are collected in large quantities, 
and sold in the markets to feed horses; they have a sweet 
taste, something approaching to that of liquorice. When 
dried and ground to meal they have been made into bread in 
years of scarcity. The juice cf them drank liberally is re¬ 
commended by Boerhaave in obstructions of the viscera, 
particularly in cases of schirrous liver and jaundice. Cattle 
are frequently found to have schirrous livers in winter, and 
to be cured soon when turned out to grass in the spring. It 
is well known that dogs eat the leaves to excite vomiting. 
Horses eat them when young, but leave them when fully 
grown. Cows, sheep, and goats eat them. The variety 
figured in flora danica and flora rustica has awns from two 
to four lines in length, and the calyxes contain from four to 
six flowers. There is another variety. 
14. Triticum caninum, fibrous or bearded wheat-grass.— 
Calyxes four-flowered, acuminate, three or five-nerved; 
florets awned ; leaves flat. Root perennial, fibrous, tomen- 
tose, not creeping. 
15. Triticum maritimum, or sea wheat-grass.— Calyxes 
many-flowered; florets mucronate; spike branched.—Native 
of France, Spain, Barbary and Egypt, but not of Eng¬ 
land. 
16. Triticum tenellum, or delicate wheat-grass,—Calyxes 
four-flowered or more; florets awnless, acute ; leaves bristle¬ 
shaped. Root annual.—Native of France, Spain, Italy, and 
Switzerland.—Introduced in 1781, by Mons. Thouin. 
17. Triticum unioloides, or linear-spiked wheat-grass.— 
Spikelets linear-lanceolate, keeled, distich. Root annual, 
capillary, villose.—Native of Italy, Sicily, and Barbary. 
18. Triticum loliaceum, or dwarf sea wheat-grass.—Ca¬ 
lyxes obtuse, many-flowered; spike simple, directed one 
way; florets awnless; culm branched. Root annual, con¬ 
sisting of long downy fibres, as in most grasses that grow 
in pure sand.—Native of England, in many parts on the 
sandy beach. 
19. Triticum unilaterale, or one-sided wheat-grass.—Ca¬ 
lyxes one-sided, alternate, awnless.—Native of the south of 
France and Italy, on the sea-coast. 
Propagation and Culture .—The season for sowing of 
lammas or winter wheat is autumn, and always when the 
ground is moist. In the downs of Hampshire, Wiltshire, 
and Dorsetshire, the farmers begin sowing their wheat in 
August, if there happens rain ; so that when they are in their 
harvest, if the weather stops them, they employ their people 
in sowing, for if the corn is not forward in autumn, so as to 
cover the ground before winter, it seldom succeeds well on 
those dry lands, especially if the spring should prove dry; 
but in the low strong lands, if they get their wheat into the 
ground by the middle of November, the farmers think they 
are in good season; but sometimes it so happens from the 
badness of the season, that in many places the wheat is not 
sown till Christmas or after, but this late-sown wheat is sub¬ 
ject to run too much to straw, especially if the spring should 
prove moist. 
The usnal allowance of seed-wheat to one acre of land is 
three bushels, but from repeated experiments it has been 
found that two bushels is sufficient on good land. The drill 
system is a great saving in seed, and perhaps the best method 
of seeding the ground, though dibbling still exists to some 
extent in some counties. Therefore, if the farmers have 
regard to their own interest, they should save this expence of 
seed, which amounts to a considerable article in large farms,- 
especially 
