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Morphological, physiological,
genetical and cytological studies in Aegilops and
Triticum collected from Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Iran1)
H. KIHARA, K. YAMASHITA and M. TANAKA
National Inst. of Genetics, Misima and Kyoto Univ., Kyoto,
Japan
Since Aegilops squarrosa L. was found to be one of
the ancestors of common wheat (MCFADDEN and SEARS 1944,
1946, KIHARA 1944, KIHARA and LILIENFELD 1949), it became
our main concern to investigate this species from various
points of view. Accordingly, the Kyoto University organized
the Scientific Expedition to the Karakoram and Hindukush, in
1955, in which KIHARA was the leader and YAMASHITA one of
the members. They started from Quetta (Pakistan) toward the
end of May, and travelled through Afghanistan as far as
Azerbaizyan, Iran. The collecting tour ended on the 30th of
July at Tabriz, Iran.
According to geographical as well as ecological conditions,
the whole area has been divided into 9 regions: namely
Quetta, Kabul, Pul-i-Khumri, Maimana, Tehran, Isfahan,
Gorgan, Pahlavi and Tabriz. In the Isfahan region not a
single species of Aegilops was found, but in all the
other regions many Triticum and Aegilops
species were collected.
I. Aegilops
Species collected were Ae. squarrosa, Ae. crassa, Ae.
cylindrica, Ae. triuncialis and Ae.
columnaris.
1) Geographical distributions:
(a) Ae. squarrosa: Three varieties of ssp.
squarrosa were collected, namely typica,
anathera and meyeri. Many intermediate types
between the first two were found almost everywhere.
Meyeri occurred solely on the west coast of the
Caspian Sea. Ssp. strangulata was found only in a
localized region on the south east coast of the Caspian Sea
(Gorgan). Its occurrence along the route was estimated to
cover 320 km.
(b) Ae. crassa included 4x and 6x forms. All strains
from Iran and the south-eastern province of Afghanistan were
4x, while in the northern stretch of the Hindukush Range,
the Pul-i-Khumri and Maimana regions 4x and 6x were found
mixed. Accordingly, it is thought that 6x crassa
originated in this district from the hybridization between
4x crassa and squarrosa.
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