TRITICUM, a genus of plants belonging to the Graminem. Several species are extensively grown in S.E. Asia. They furnish the wheat, a seed or grain largely used for food since the most ancient times. There are numerous sorts of cultivated wheat, from which must be distinguished the three primary varieties, viz.: Var. a. mutieuro, T. hybernum, Linn., the winter wheat or unbearded wheat.
Var. b. aristatum, T. amtivum, Linn., the summer wheat or bearded wheat.
Var. e. aithrens, T. spelta, L., wheat with fragile axis and adherent grain.
Metzger enumerates as distinct kinds of cul tivated wheat, T. dicoccum, durum, monococemn, polonieum, spelta, turgidum, and vulgare.
Wheat is grown largely as a winter crop in Coimbatore, Salem, Mysore, Berar, Sind, Oudh, Rajputana, Central India, and in the Panjab plains, T. mstivum being the common species, and T. durum the more frequent about Ludhiana and Multan, of many varieties, white or red, generally bearded ; 'but beardless wheat is common in some parts. Twelve samples of red and sixty-two of white wheat were exhibited at the Lahore Ex hibition. Red wheat holds a very much lower place in the estimation of the Panjab natives, and sells at a cheaper rate, than white, the former being consumed by the poorer classes and the bulk of the population, whilst the use of the latter is restricted to men of wealth. Several varieties of white wheat-are also grown. The gilgit or paighambri, a small, round, fancy grain, is also called Mullane or Rai Munir, from the places where it was first grown. There are also daud ghoul, kabr, and vadanak (kanag &gar, Shaltpur), the last-named being a parti cularly fine large grain.
Some kinds tire grown t,o great heights in the Himalayas, wheat being one of the chief crops up to 9500 feet on the Cheuab, and, according to Dr. Clegliorn, occurring to 15,000 feet on the &Wei, good to 11,500 feet, and grown to 13,000 feet in Ladakh. At Ambala, wheat and also
barley are sometitnes sown as early as August and September, so as to be in flower in December ; but in this plan it is frequently killed by frost.
The various kinds of wheat have been known from a very early period, and mention is made of wheat as a food in the earliest records of the history of man. Both the Egyptians and the Jews made use of wheat as an article of diet, and this food is early mentioned in tho Bible. It was also used by the Greeks and Romans, and Theo phrastus and Pliny make frequent mention of it. When the fruit is ground, the testa, or seed-coat, is separated from what is called the flour. This flour consists of the powdered albumen and em bryo of the seeds. The proximate vegetable principles which this flour contains are starch and gluten. The starch is a highly carbonized vegetable principle, whilst the gluten is charac terized by possessing nitrogen. Foods that con tain carbonaceous matters are fattening, whilst those that contain nitrogen are strengthening. It is thus that wheat-flour has come to be the staple article of diet of the finest races of men in the world. The other cereal grasses contain the same principles, but the glnten or azotized principle is not in so large a quantity as in wheat, as the fol lowing analysis of 100 parts of the organic matter of wheat, rice, and barley will show : Wheat, . . . 70'00 starch. 23'00 gluten.
Rice, . . . 85'07 3'60 Barley, . . . 79'00 16'00 The chemical composition of wheat greatly varies, however, according to the soil in which it is grown. In 100 parts, the following was found to be the composition of eight samples: