Spelt was an important staple food in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times. Now it survives as a relict crop in Central Europe and northern Spain, and it has found a new market as a health food. Spelt is sometimes considered a subspecies of the closely related species common wheat ("Triticum aestivum"), in which case its botanical name is considered to be "Triticum aestivum" subsp. "spelta". Like common wheat, it is a hexaploid wheat, which means it has six sets of chromosomes.