Triticum aestivum
Triticum urartu
ble commun, ble cultive, bread wheat, common wheat, soft wheat, wheat
red wild einkorn, wheat
14-150 cm;
nodes glabrous or pubescent;
internodes usually hollow, even immediately below the spikes.
to 145 cm, decumbent at the base;
nodes pubescent;
internodes mostly hollow, solid for 1 cm below the spikes.
6-15(20) mm wide, glabrous or pubescent.
7-10 mm wide, yellow-green, puberulent, hairs uniform in length, soft.
(3.5)6-18 cm, usually thicker than wide to about as thick as wide, wider than thick in compact forms;
rachises shortly ciliate at the nodes and margins, not disarticulating.
6-12 cm, wider than thick;
rachises densely ciliate at the nodes and margins;
internodes 3-5 mm;
disarticulation spontaneous, dispersal units wedge-shaped.
10-15 mm, appressed or ascending, with 3-9 florets, 2-5 seed-forming.
12-16 mm, rectangular, with 2-3 florets, 1-2 seed-forming.
6-12 mm, coriaceous, loosely appressed to the lower florets, usually keeled in the distal 1/2, sometimes prominently keeled to the base, terminating in a tooth or awn, awns to 4 cm;
lemmas 10-15 mm, toothed or awned, awns to 12 cm;
paleas not splitting at maturity.
8-11 mm, coriaceous, tightly appressed to the lower florets, 2-keeled, 2-toothed, second tooth not well developed;
lemmas 10-13 mm, awned, awns on the lower 2 lemmas to 7 cm, on the third lemma to 1 cm;
paleas splitting at maturity;
anthers 2-4 mm.
red, that of the lowest floret in each spikelet darker than the second;
endosperm flinty.
mealy to flinty.
AuBD.
Au.
= 42.
= 14.
Triticum aestivum
Triticum urartu
Triticum aestivum is the most widely cultivated wheat. Both winter and spring types are grown in the Flora region. In addition to being grown for bread flour, T. aestivum cultivars are used for pastry-grade flour, Oriental-style soft noodles, and cereals.
Club wheats, sometimes called Triticum compactum Host, are cultivated in the Pacific Northwest for export to Asian markets. They have short (3.5-6 cm), compressed spikes, with up to 25 spikelets having 2-6 florets. Their spike shape varies from oblong or oval with uniformly distributed spikelets to club-shaped with spikelets crowded towards the apex.
No wild hexaploid progenitors of Triticum aestivum are known, but the two distinguishing characteristics of wild Tritcum species, fragile rachises breaking into wedge-shaped units and closely appressed glumes, are found in plants cultivated in Tibet and named T. aestivum subsp. tibetanum J.Z. Shao.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Triticum urartu is the wild diploid wheat that contributed the A haplome to the durum and bread wheat evolutionary lines. It does not have a diploid domesticated form. Because of its close morphological similarity to T. boeoticum, T. urartu was included in T. boeoticum until genetic analysis showed it to be a separate species. It has a more limited distribution than T. boeoticum, being known from disjunct regions in Turkey, Lebanon, Armenia, western Iran, and eastern Iraq.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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