Intoduction to Ethnobotany The diversity of plants and plant uses Draft, version November 22, 2018 Shipunov, Alexey (compiler). Introduction to Ethnobotany. The diversity of plant uses. November 22, 2018 version (draft). 358 pp. At the moment, this is based largely on P. Zhukovskij’s “Cultivated plants and their wild relatives” (1950, 1961), and A.C.Zeven & J.M.J. de Wet “Dictionary of cultivated plants and their regions of diversity” (1982). Title page image: Mandragora officinarum (Solanaceae), “female” mandrake, from “Hortus sanitatis” (1491). This work is dedicated to public domain. Contents Cultivated plants and their wild relatives 4 Dictionary of cultivated plants and their regions of diversity 92 Cultivated plants and their wild relatives 4 5 CEREALS AND OTHER STARCH PLANTS Wheat It is pointed out that the wild species of Triticum and rela­ted genera are found in arid areas; the greatest concentration of them is in the Soviet republics of Georgia and Armenia and these are regarded as their centre of origin. A table is given show- ing the geographical distribution of 20 species of Triticum, 3 diploid, 10 tetraploid and 7 hexaploid, six of the species are endemic in Georgia and Armenia: the diploid T. urarthu, the tetraploids T. timopheevi, T. palaeo-colchicum, T. chaldicum and T. carthlicum and the hexaploid T. macha, Transcaucasia is also considered to be the place of origin of T. vulgare. The 20 species are described in turn; they comprise 4 wild species, T. aegilopoides, T. urarthu (2n = 14), T. dicoccoides and T. chaldicum (2n = 28) and 16 cultivated species. A number of synonyms are indicated for most of the species. T. thaoudar is consid- ered to be an ecotype of T. aegilopoides; the disease resistance of this species has been much exaggerated and it is said to be quite susceptible to mildew and several rusts. T. urarthu, which is distinguished from T. aegilopoides only by the absence of the tooth at the end of the second keel of the glume and by its pubescent leaves, is susceptible to yellow rust. The cultivated T. monococcum is more resistant than the two wild species but it too can be attacked by rust and mildew. The wild tetraploid T. dicoccoides is also susceptible to rust and mildew. The other wild tetraploid, T. chaldicum, a winter form, crosses easily with T. timopheevi, in which respect it differs from all other wheat species. It has certain morphological re- semblances to T. timopheevi and may have contributed to its ancestry; this remains uncertain, some workers considering T. timopheevi to be an amphidiploid, others an autotetraploid of T. monococcum var. hornemanni. The hybrid of T. carthlicum var. fuliginosum x T. timopheevi has been named T. fungicidum by the author on account of its disease resistance, which exceeds that of the parents. T. dicoccum is said to have been cultivated by 4000 BC, no grounds are found for regarding it as a cultivated form of T. dicoccoides, from which it may however have arisen by hybridization, possibly with members of Aegilops, Agropyron or Haynaldia. The Georgian wheat. T. palaeocolchicum, is also very ancient. having been found in remains from the eneolithic period; it bears close resemblances to the hexaploid T. macha and the two are generally sown together. T. carthlicum too is endemic in eastern Georgia and not in Persia as its former name, T. persicum, implied. It is highly resistant to brown and yellow rust, smut and most races of mildew. The species is thought to be polyphyletic since different botanical varieties of it have proved incompletely fertile when intercrossed; moreover, some of the hybrids were susceptible to mildew, though the two parents were resistant. The amphidiploid T. fungicidum produced from it segregated and by selection some of them were brought 6 to full fertility and a unique degree of disease resistance, though their ear remained rather brittle, The origin of T. durum is ascribed to the Mediterranean area, with secondary centres in Russia and Abyssinia. The hard wheats are not as disease resistant as has often been claimed, being often attacked by brown rust and mildew. In Georgia the pop- ulations of hard wheat frequently turn into soft wheat if no selection is practiced. The origin of T. orientale is uncertain but no grounds are found for supposing it to be a hybrid of T. durum x T. polonicum. The species is in the course of extinction. The origin of T. turgidum is also regarded as uncertain. In view of its susceptibility to frost, drought, rust and mildew it is not considered important for Russian agriculture - even the forms with branched ears. T. polonicum, once grown in Transcaucasia, for instance in Kartli, is also passing out of cultivation. Among the hexaploid wheats T. macha is known only from western Georgia; it has been found in ancient remains in Colchis. Menabde, who described it considers it to be one of the ancestors of T. vulgare, since forms belonging to that species ap- peared in his crosses of T. macha x T. monococcum. It also crosses easily with all the tetraploid wheats, even T. dicoccoides. Though speltoid forms occur frequently among the bread wheats in Transcaucasia and elsewhere, none is identical with T. spelta and the question remains open as to whether this species arose by mutation or by hybridization. The speltoid winter wheat with branched spikelets, T. vavilovi, endemic in the Van vilayet is definitely thought to have originated by mutation. T. sphaerococcum is considered important because of its unique strength of straw. The Chinese wheat T. amplissifolium also has spherical grains combined with com- pactoid ears of the inflatum type. T. compactum, in spite of its closeness to T.vul- gare, is regarded as a distinct species owing to its antiquity; it existed in the pale- olithic period before T. vulgare or T. durum were known. Of T. vulgare over 4000 cul- tivars are known, the greatest range of all being found in the Soviet Union, in Geor- gia, and the Caucasus. The part that Russian wheats such as Ladoga, Onega, Girka, Arnautka, Beloturka, and Garnovka have played in breeding the wheats of North America. The wheat Turkey is identified with the Russian wheat Krymka. Reference is again made to the work of Menabde in Georgia who by crossing T. monococcum x T. macha produced wheats with a tough rachis; the second generation comprised ”all the main groups of wheat so far found in cultivation: rigidum, speltoides, in- doeuropaeum, including a range of compactoides and Squarehead forms”. The range of forms found in the hybrids corresponds very closely to that found under natural conditions in the wheats of Georgia, a great number of the forms, for instance, being awnless. H. Pieck is cited as having referred to the introduction of soft wheats in 2600 BC into Thessaly from the plains of south Russia; from Thessaly they were said to have gone to Greece. 7 The author has found no association between disease resistance and chromosome number in the wheat species, many cases of susceptibility being found in the diploid and tetraploid species; even T. timopheevi is attacked in certain localities by stem rust and certain races of Tilletia tritici. On the other hand, many of the Chinese forms of T. vulgare are very resistant to diseases. The author’s T. fungicidum (T. timopheevi x T. carthlicum var. fuliginosum), though more disease resistant than either parent has serious defects and was further crossed to T. sphaerococcum var. globosum; in the sixth back-cross generation some fertile, tough-eared forms combining resis- tance to mildew and several species of rust and smut were selected. A very resistant hybrid has also been produced from (T. dicoccum var. farrum x Haynaldia villosa) x T. vulgare var. lutescens ’62’. Rye Thirteen species of the genus Secale (2n =14) are described, in three sections, Silves- tria, Perennantes and Cerealia, though certain species, such as S. daralagesi, S. cil- iatoglume, S. anatolicum and S. dalmaticum are regarded as of doubtful validity. The species described are: S. silvestre, S. kuprijanovii, S. ciliatoglume, S. dalmaticum, S. montanum, S. anatolicum, S. africanum, S. vavilovi, S. ancestrale, S. afghanicum, S. dighoricum, S. segetale and S. cereale. The majority of the wild species are perenni- als and occur on rocky hillsides; the annual species are found mostly in sandy places: S. vavilovi on vulcanic sand, S. ancestrale on alluvia, S. silvestre on sands and sandy clay, S. afghanicum, S. dighoricum and S. segetale are all weeds growing in crops of light sandy soils, where the only cultivated species, S. cereale, also grows. The opin- ion is expressed that the annual S. vavilovi arose from S. ciliatoglume by adaptation to sandy soils and S. daralagesi arose in the reverse direction, by adaptation of S. segetale to rocky hill sides away from the cultivated fields. The main trend of evo- lution is however thought to have been from the perennial to the annual type; by mutation or by segregation, it began to infect the fields of other cereals, giving rise to weed ryes such as S. segetale, from which by further selection S. cereale is thought to have arisen. This process seems to have occurred relatively recently, in the Bronze age, as no rye appears in earlier deposits. At Mitridat in the Kerc peninsula, in de- posits dating from the 3rd-4th centuries AD, grains of weed rye occur among both wheat and barley. In connection with claims by Tumanjan that rye originates from tetraploid wheats as a result of the action of short days the author asks why no rye ever occurs among the wheats of Abyssinia. The gradual increase in the proportion of rye in the wheat crops on proceeding northwards or upwards, and particularly on the northern slopes, can still be seen in the Caucasus and observations are cited where in the highlands of Karabah the yielding capacity of the rye was shown to be greater than that of the wheat (31.2 against 24.6 c.