Triticum aestivum L.

Erect, robust, green or ± glaucous annual tufts, 30–100 cm. Leaf-sheath firm, subcoriaceous, shortly pubescent or glabrous, green or straw-coloured. Auricles 2–3.5 mm, pale green to pinkish, usually ciliate-margined. Ligule 0.6–4 mm, hyaline, truncate, shortly denticulate and minutely ciliate. Leaf-blade 4–30 cm × 2–12 mm, abaxially smooth, adaxially minutely scabrid, margins finely scabrid, tip acuminate and slightly hooded. Culm 25–80 cm, internodes smooth or minutely scabrid. Spike distichous, linear-oblong, lax- to dense-flowered, 4–9 × 1–2.5 cm; rachis tough, margins ± ciliate. Spikelets 3–6-flowered. Glumes 7–10 mm, coriaceous, or pubescent, especially on margins below, truncate, keel with sparse prickle-teeth produced above to a short tooth or awn. Lemma 9.5–12 mm, coriaceous and rigid, 7-nerved, acute and awnless or awned between 2 small lobes; awn 1–50–(70) mm, scabrid. Palea ≈ lemma, not folded, submembranous, keels hairy, interkeel with some small hairs especially below, margins membranous, meeting, glabrous. Rachilla 1–1.5 mm, hairy. Lodicules 1.5–1.75 mm, long ciliate. Anthers 2.5–4 mm. Gynoecium: ovary 2 mm; stigma-styles short 1–1.5 mm. Caryopsis 7–7.5 × 3.4–3.8 mm, ellipsoid, ovate-ellipsoid or ovoid, variously coloured; embryo 2.5 mm. Cleistogamous, but briefly chasmogamous.

[From: Edgar and Connor (2000) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 5 (second printing).]