Hordeum vulgare L.
Barley

Habit: 		Annual or winter annual.
Culms: 		50-120 cm. tall, coarse but weak, erect.
Blades: 	Broad, flat, mostly 5-15 mm. wide, lower surface scabrous, with long glabrous auricles.
Ligule: 	Membranous, short, truncate.
Inflorescence: 	Spikes dense, erect or nearly so, 2-10 cm. long, excluding awns, the rachis
		not disarticulating at maturity.
Spikelets: 	Sessile, alternately in 3's at each node of the rachis, all perfect.
Glumes: 	Equal, narrow, divergent at base, about 8 mm. long, with awns 7-10 mm. long.
Lemmas: 	10-12 mm. long, lanceolate, smooth, rounded on the back, narrowed into a
		scabrous awn, 10-15 cm. long, straight, erect, the rachilla extended into a short hairy pedicel.
Palea: 		About as long as its lemma.
Fruit: 		Grain hairy at the summit, usually adherent to the palea at maturity.
Habitat: 	Cultivated land, waste places and old fields; spontaneous for a year or two
		but not persistent.
Kansas Range:	Cultivated throughout.
Use: 		Cultivated for its grain.
Synonyms:	Hordeum aegiceras Nees ex Royle
		Hordeum distichon L.
		Hordeum hexastichum L.
		Hordeum hexastichon L.
		Hordeum irregulare Aberg & Wiebe
		Hordeum sativum Pers.
		Hordeum vulgare L. var. trifurcatum (Schlecht.) Alef.