An annual grass, commonly 60-150 cm in height, but may be as short as 30 cm. Stems tufted, erect or semi-erect to prostrate, generally hollow with thin walls, but in some varieties partially or completely filled with pith: nodes generally 5-7, wholly or partially covered by leaf sheaths; leaves long and narrow, with prominent parallel veins, and having ligule and the auricles, glabrous or hairy on one or both surfaces; inflorescence a spike of spikelets, commonly called 'ear', with a tough rachis, awned or awnless, glabrous or hairy; spikelets 2-ranked, compressed parallel to the rachis, closely or loosely imbricate about as long as broad, 5-9-flowered, ripening 4-5 grains towards the centre, usually fewer at the base and apex: glumes loose and broad; lemmas thin, pale and rounded on back; fruit or the grain threshes free from the glumes and lemmas, highly variab1e, oblong with blunt ends, 5-10 mm. long, usually plump and swollen, with a shallow groove on one face.

Antivinous, bilious, demulcent, discutient, diuretic, emollient, excipient, intoxicant, laxative, useful as a poultice, restorative, sedative

Triticum aestivum L.
Centre for New Crops and Plant Resources
Plants for a Future

Adenine, adenosine (petiole); allantoin (embryo); alpha-amyrin, apigenin, arginine, ascorbic acid, beta-amyrin, beta-carotene, caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, ferulic acid, lecithin, linoleic acid, protocatechuic acid, quercetin, salicylic acid, tocopherol, vanillic acid (seed); choline (root); diazepam (sprout seedling); niacin, oleic acid, p-coumaric acid (plant)

For cancers, corns, tumors, warts, and whitlow (seeds); biliousness and intoxication (young stems); malaise, sore throat, thirst, abdominal coldness and spasmic pain, constipation and cough (seed sprout)

Sharma PV. Classical Uses of Medicinal Plants.