T. compactum erinaceum was a bearded, hairy rachis, red-chaffed wheat named for its appearance similar to that of a hedgehog.

[1] However data from the United States Department of Agriculture indicates two additional specimen that were discovered and identified as T. compactum erinaceum more than a hundred years after their presumed disappearance.

[2] The new specimen indicate that T. compactum erinaceum was grown in the United States until the Dust Bowl era, at which point it presumably disappeared.

T. comactum erinaceum has awned spikes (2 to 5 cm long) and a brown, wide, glabrous glume.

[2] T. compactum erinaceum was grown alongside other species of wheat by Jesuit Monks in Monterey County California during the late eighteenth century.