Biorepository Data Portal

Culms 20-55 cm, geniculate and semiprostrate at the base, usually with many tillers. Sheaths with hyaline margins, ciliate; blades 5-8 cm long, 3-4 mm wide. Spikes 2-4.5 cm long, 0.4-1.3 cm wide, ovoid-ellipsoid basally, abruptly contracted distally to a narrow cylinder, with 3-6 spikelets, distal 1-3 spikelets sterile; rudimentary spikelets (2)3; disarticulation at the base of the spikes. Basal spikelets 8-12 mm, subventricose, urceolate, with 2 fertile florets and 2-3 sterile florets; apical spikelets 4-5 mm, typically with 1 sterile floret, although cultivated forms may have 1 fertile floret and 1-2 sterile florets. Glumes of fertile spikelets 7-10 mm, usually velutinous, sometimes scabrous, apices with (2)3 awns, awns 2-5.5 cm; lemmas 2-awned, awns 0.5-4 cm, with 1 lateral tooth, the tooth sometimes reduced to a shoulder. Caryopses 5-7 mm, falling free of the lemmas and paleas. Haplomes UM, UMN. 2n = 28, 48.

Aegilops neglecta is native around the Mediterranean and in western Asia. It has been collected in Arlington County, Virginia, but is not established in the Flora region.

An e. Mediterranean sp. with short, ovoid spikes bearing 2-5 spikelets, the glumes each with 4 long awns, is reported to be established as a weed in Va.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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