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Wheat Information Service
Number 84: 60-63 (1997)
Genetic stocks
Assembly of North American accessions of
Aegilops cylindrica
N. Watanabe
Faculty of Agriculture, Gifu University, 1-1 Yanagido, Gifu
501-11 Japan
(E-mail: watnb＠cc.gifu-u.ac.jp)
Aegilops cylindrica Host. is a wide spread species in
Mediterranean, West Asia: Asia Minor into Bulgaria, Romania,
Yugoslavia and up along the Danube into Hungary; northwards into the
Caucasus region and along the Black Sea coast. Probably at the end of
the 19th century Ae. cylindrica was introduced into the
United States and presents in many states from the east to the west
coasts, although most abundantly in the western and northwestern
states and the plains of Midwest (Donald and Ogg 1991). The weedy
growth of Ae. cylindrica is dramatically demonstrated
by its introduction and subsequent wide spreading in the United
States. When the introduction occurred is unclear, but the oldest
specimen is from 1918. The species has become troublesome in the
fields and pasture. Its growth on the edges and within wheat fields
is also troublesome.
Ae. triuncialis L. var. triuncialis is
also a wide spread species in Mediterranean, West Asia and all
over southern Europe and the Near East, extending eastwards into
central Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan and well- represented along
the entire Fertile Crescent arc. Also it was found on Cyprus and the
southern Crimea as well as in Ciscaucasus, but there predominantly in
the eastern parts along the Caspian Sea. Its spread appears to be
limited by the 45-degree N latitude, and only in France, Italy,
Slovenia and Croatia it extend beyond the latitude. It was introduced
into the United States. The species has become troublesome weed on
range in California and Pennsylvania. Fig. 1
shows current infested area surveyed by the weed scientists in
the United States in 1988 (Donald and Ogg 1991 ), and the locations
of herbaria summarized by van Slageren (1994).
Potential benefits of collections
Differentiation of the colonizer species must be widely considered in
the sight of evolution. It is known that Bromus tectrum was
introduced into the intermountain region on Western North America cat
1890, and expanded to its present range within 40 years (Mack 1981).
Although not as recently introduced B. tectrum, California
populations of other alien annuals such as Bromus mollis and
Avena barbata also show distinct regional differentiation in
phenology and morphology. Allelic and genotypic composition of
ancestral Spanish and colonial Californian gene pools of A.
barbata has been considered (Garcia et al. 1989; Perez de la
Vega et al. 1991).
However, North American Aegilops has not been investigated by
the geneticists, although those species have become troublesome weed
in the fields and pasture. I do not know the considerable collections
of North American Aegilops.
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