Culms to 100 cm, decumbent; nodes
glabrous or puberulent;internodes mostly hollow, solid for 1
cm below the spikes. Blades 4-6 mm
wide, pubescent. Spikes to 10 cm,
wider than thick; rachises densely
hairy at the nodes and margins; internodes 3-8 mm; disarticulation
spontaneous, dispersal units wedge-shaped. Spikelets
15-25 mm, oblong to rectangular, with 3 florets, usually the lower 2 seed-forming.
Glumes 10-15 mm, coriaceous, tightly
appressed to the lower florets, 2-keeled, prominent keel winged to the base,
2-toothed, second tooth poorly developed; lemmas
10-15 mm, awned, awns on the lower 2 lemmas to 15 cm, on the third lemma to 2
cm; paleas not splitting at maturity.Endosperm flinty. HaplomesAuB. 2n = 28.
Triticum dicoccoides is the wild counterpart of T. dicoccum,
and is an ancestor of both T. durum-and T.
aestivum. Morphologically, it is almost
indistinguishable from Triticum
araraticum Jakubz.,
a wild tetraploid that differs from T.
dicoccoides in combining the Ab
and G haplomes. Triticum dicoccoides is native to the Fertile Crescent. Its
distribution overlaps that of T.
araraticum in the northern and eastern portions of the region.