Oswald Heer,[1806] in his curious paper upon the plants of the lake-dwellers of the stone age in Switzerland, attributes to T. turgidum two non-branched ears, the one bearded, the other almost without beard, of which he gives drawings. Later, in an exploration of the lake-dwellings of Robenhausen, Messicommer did not find it, although there was abundant store of grain.[1807] Strœbel and Pigorini said they found wheat with grano grosso duro (T. turgidum), in the lake-dwellings of Parmesan.[1808] For the rest, Heer[1809] considers this to be a variety or race of the common wheat, and Sordelli inclines to the same opinion.
Fraas thinks that the krithanias of Theophrastus was T. turgidum, but this is absolutely uncertain. According to Heldreich,[1810] the great wheat is of modern introduction into Greece. Pliny[1811] spoke briefly of a wheat with branching ears, yielding one hundred grains, which was most likely our miraculous wheat.
Thus history and philology alike lead us to consider the varieties of Triticum turgidum as modifications of the common wheat obtained by cultivation. The form with branching ears is not perhaps earlier than Pliny’s time.
These deductions would be overthrown by the discovery of the T. turgidum in a wild state, which has not hitherto been made with certainty. In spite of C. Koch,[1812] no one admits that it grows, outside cultivation, at Constantinople and in Asia Minor. Boissier’s herbarium, so rich in Eastern plants, has no specimen of it. It is given as wild in Egypt by Schweinfurth, and Ascherson, but this is the result of a misprint.[1813]
3. Hard Wheat—Triticum durum, Desfontaines.
Long cultivated in Barbary, in the south of Switzerland and elsewhere, it has never been found wild. In the different provinces of Spain it has no less than fifteen names,[1814] and none are derived from the Arab name quemah used in Algeria[1815] and Egypt.[1816] The absence of names in several other countries, especially of original names, is very striking. This is a further indication of a derivation from the common wheat obtained in Spain and the north of Africa at an unknown epoch, perhaps within the Christian era.
4. Polish Wheat—Triticum polonicum, Linnæus.
This other hard wheat, with yet longer grain, cultivated chiefly in the east of Europe, has not been found wild. It has an original name in German, Gäner, Gommer, Gümmer,[1817] and in other languages names which are connected only with persons or with countries whence the seed was obtained. It cannot be doubted that it is a form obtained by cultivation, probably in the east of Europe, at an unknown, perhaps recent epoch.
Conclusion as to the Specific Unity of the Principal Races of Wheat.
We have just shown that the history and the vernacular names of the great races of wheat are in favour of a derivation contemporary with man, probably not very ancient, from the common kind of wheat, perhaps from the small-grained wheat formerly cultivated by the Egyptians, and by the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy. Alefeld[1818] arrived at the specific unity of T. vulgare, T. turgidum, and T. durum, by means of an attentive observation of the three cultivated together, under the same conditions. The experiments of Henri Vilmorin[1819] on the artificial fertilization of these wheats lead to the same result. Although the author has not yet seen the product of several generations, he has ascertained that the most distinct principal forms can be crossed with ease and produce fertile hybrids. If fertilization be taken as a measure of the intimate degree of affinity which leads to the grouping of individuals into the same species, we cannot hesitate in the case in question, especially with the support of the historical considerations which I have given.