Culms 100-160 cm; nodes glabrous;
internodes mostly hollow, solid for
1 cm below the spikes. Blades to 20 mm
wide, glabrous or pubescent. Spikes
7-16 cm, wider than thick or about as wide as thick; rachises enlarged at the base of the glumes, sparsely hairy at the
nodes and margins, not disarticulating. Spikelets
25-40 mm, with 4-5 florets, 2-3 seed-forming. Glumes 20-40 mm, often concealing the florets, lanceolate, chartaceous,
loosely appressed to the lower florets, with 1 prominent keel, apices acute, terminating
in a tooth; lemmas to 30 mm,
chartaceous, toothed or awned, awns on the lower 2 lemmas to 15 cm; paleas not splitting at maturity. Endosperm
flinty. HaplomesAuB. 2n = 28.
Triticum polonicum is a minor, durum-like, spring wheat species. It
is grown in the Mediterranean basin and central Asia on a small scale. In the Flora region, it is grown principally
for plant breeding. It differs from other domesticated wheats in its unusually
long, chartaceous glumes and lemmas. The epithet -polonicum- reflects an early
European botanical bias; the species did not originate in Poland.