Husked and ‘Naked’ Grain

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Abstract
When classical scholars use the term ‘spelt’ to translate such words as and in Greek, and far, odor, semen (adoreum), arinca, and the like in Latin, they seldom realize that all these words denote grains which are nowadays included in the genus wheat. Within this genus a distinction is made between ‘husked’ and ‘naked’ species: naked wheat can be ‘threshed out’ on the threshing-floor, the grain being separated from the chaff and left ready for milling; husked wheat has before milling to undergo a separate hulling operation to free the grain from the husks, or cover glumes, by which it is enclosed and which so tightly adhere to it that the rachis (i.e. stem of the ear) breaks before the grain is freed. The term ‘spelt’, when used in the way described, denotes the husked wheats, while ‘wheat’ is reserved for the translation of the names (, triticum, siligo) of the naked species.

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