Aegilops and Triticum
The genus Triticum includes the wild and domesticated species usually thought of as wheat.
In the 1950s growing awareness of the genetic similarity (including some shared genones) of the wild goatgrasses (Aegilops) led some botanists to amalgamate Aegilops and Triticum as one genus, Triticum. This approach is still followed by some (mainly geneticists), but has not been widely adopted by taxonomists. Aegilops is morphologically highly distinct from Triticum, with rounded glumes rather than keeled glumes.
Aegilops is important in wheat evolution because of its role in two important hybridisation events. Wild emmer (T. dicoccoides and T. araraticum) resulted from the hybridisation of a wild wheat, T. urartu, and an as yet unidentified goatgrass, probably similar to Ae. speltoides. Hexaploid wheats (e.g. T. aestivum and T. spelta) are the result of a hybridisation between a domesticated tetraploid wheat, probably T. dicoccum or T. durum, and another goatgrass, Ae. tauschii (also known as Ae. squarrosa).
Read more about this topic: Taxonomy Of Wheat