came in turn from an Indo-European root,
ker, that meant “to grow”; the same root
also led to “create,” “increase,” and
“crescent.” Bhares was the word for
“barley” and also gave us “barn”; wrughyo
meant “rye.” “Wheat” came from the same
root that gives us “white” (kweit),
apparently because its flour was light in
color; and “oat” came from oid, “to swell.”Ancient and Modern Wheats A handful of
different wheats have been grown from
prehistoric times to the present. Their
evolution is fascinating and still somewhat
mysterious, and is summarized in the box on
p. 466. The simplest wheat and one of the first
to be cultivated was einkorn, which had the
standard genetic endowment of most plants
and animals: namely two sets of
chromosomes (a “diploid” species).
Somewhat less than a million years ago, a
chance mating of a wild wheat with a wild