Description: Erect annuals; culms pubescent below the spike, otherwise smooth.
Leaves with ligule a membranous rim; blade rolled in bud, flat, lax, scabrous, with auricles at base.
Inflorescence a distichous spike, initially erect, finally drooping, always awned. Spikelets solitary, laterally compressed, sessile; florets 2, equal, bisexual, tardily disarticulating above the glumes. Glumes equal, linear to subulate, strongly compressed, keeled, scabrid. Lemmas exserted from glumes, stiff, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, stiffly ciliate along the prominent keel and margins, tapering to a long straight awn about 2 cm long. Palea equal to lemma, narrow, awnless, 2-toothed, 2-keeled.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 3 spp., Asia, Afr., Amer. & Eur. Aust.: 1 sp. (naturalized).
A genus of 3 species from the Mediterranean region. Includes the crop species , S. cereale, Cereal Rye. Also one parent of the Hybrid genus X Triticosecale, also a crop species, and planted for erosion control. Derivation: the Latin name for ‘Rye’.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & K. L. McClay
Taxon concept: updated : Jacobs, S.W.L., Whalley, R.D.B. & Wheeler, D.J.B. Grasses of New South Wales, Fourth Edition (2008).
| One species in NSW: Secale cereale |
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