ON THE BOTANICAL ORIGIN OF WHEAT. (FROM THE "INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER.")

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3212, 1 November 1867, Page 4

ON THE BOTANICAL ORIGIN OF WHEAT. (FROM THE " INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER.")

M. Fabre, of Agde, has conducted some most interesting experiments in the production of wheat from uEgUojys ovata, the results of which were a taller growth of the plants generally, a greater development and enlargement, as well as a more regular growth of the ears, and a consequent enlargement of the aeeds ,- indeed, we have seen some seeds of JEJgilops ovata that would even pass muster for the immature seeds of a poor discription of wheat. The chaff-scales also under cultivation modify their character to that of wheat, and the number of awms aro likewise lessened. Thus M. Fabre has endeavoured to show that JElgilops triticoides is produced from JEgUops ovata, and in a further period of about six years that wheat can be produced by cultivation from JSgilopatriticoidea. As a still further proof of the accuracy of these expiriments, we may quote the following account of a similar trial made and recorded by Professor Buckam, then of the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester':— "Iv 1854, we planted a plot with seed jdSgitops ovata, from which were gathered seeds for a second crop in 1855, leaving the rest of the first plot to help itself, which it did, and came up spontaneously. This plot has since continued to bring forth its annual crop in a wild state, in which the spikes are short, and so brittle that they fall to pieces below each spikelet the moment the seed is at all ripe, The produce of I the 1855 crop has in the same manner been cultivated year by year in different parts of the experimental garden of the Royal Agricultural College, and our crop for 1860 had many specimens upwards of two feet high, and with spikes of flowers containing as many as twelve spikelets. Our conclusions then are, that with us the JEgilops'w Steadily advancing, and we fully expect in three or four years to arrive at a true variety of cereal wheat. What, too, ia confirmatory of this matter, is, that the braised foliage of the wild grass and the cultivated wheat emit the same peculiar odour j and, besides, the JEgliops is subject to attacks of the same species of parasites." These parasites are small microscopic fungi, known to the agriculturist as rust, mildew, &c, or more commonly spoken of as blight. " These," Professor Buckman continues to say, "seem to be the effect of civilisation ;tnd it is not a little remarkable that, in this respect, this grass should be so much like our field crops, which were particularly liable to blight in the straw and foliage during I860." jffigilops ttiiicoides has by many botanists been referred to a hybrid form of ovata, and fromits nature and habit it seems to stand between it and wheat, and thus form a connecting link ; for the plants are found mostly on the borders or in the neighboorhood of corn-fields, and never in situations far removed from culivated wheat ; and the fact of its being scattered about in small quantities in different localities in the louth of France would i seem to indicate that corn-field* exu ted in the I neighbourhood at one time, ' I