Aegilops columnaris

Kıl buğday

Tufted 20-50 cm annual. Upper leaf blade linear-lanceolate, 2.5-4.5 mm broad. Spike 2-4 cm , obconical in outline . Lower 2-3 spikelets fertile, 7-11 mm, usually densely adpressed-pilose and ± divergent, the upper 2 smaller and sterile; fruiting spike shed as a unit. Vestigial spikelets 3. Glumes of fertile spikelets oblong-elliptic, 7-11 mm, closely veined; awns 2-3, 3-5 cm, setaceous above the 0.5-1 mm broad base; if 2-awned then 1 awn broader than the other and often bifurcating above; lower lemmas bearing a pair of awns and a narrow tooth, upper two lemmas sterile and awnless. Sterile spikelets above 2 fertile ones reduced in size, forming a slender column with internodes longer than spikelets; uppermost spikelet with each glume bearing 2-3 setaceous awns often overtopping those of fertile spikelets; lemmas more shortly 3-awned. 2n = 28. Fl. 5-6. Steppe, gullies, scree, fallow fields, on igneous, shaley and calcareous substrata, s.l.-1850 m.

Syria, N.W. Iran, N. Iraq, Transcaucasia. Ir.-Tur. element.