Hordeum murinum L.

Seedling

Single cotyledon of large size, 70 x 3 mm. The following leaf is approximately the same size. Ligule short, 1 mm, membranous, truncate and serrated or torn, earlobes intersecting and conspicuous. The sheath is broad and glabrous. Plantlet with rolled prefoliation, light green and slightly hairy.

Adult plant

Hordeum murinum is an erect annual grass that can reach 80 cm high, in rather thick clumps. Numerous erect culms, leafy up to the top. Leaves with glabrous sheath, hairy blade ciliated, wide, plane, linear, with acute apex, soft, slightly rough to the touch, with scabrous margin. Ligule short, 1.5 mm, membranous, truncate, white, briefly toothed, almost straight. Linear, intersecting earlobes whitish and conspicuous. Inflorescence in a spike 5-15 cm long, dense, with numerous spikelets 1-1.8 cm long and whorled in threes, one central hermaphrodite and two lateral male ; Glumes of male spikelets unequal, the upper one reduced to a scabrous ridge, rough to the touch, shorter than the lower one which is more or less linear, ciliate and terminated by a long ridge; glumes of the hermaphrodite spikelet lanceolate, attenuated to a ridge 2-2.5 cm long, puberulent on the back and ciliate on the margins. Flowers with lemma terminated by a long ridge up to 3 cm and with acute bidentate palea, the lemmas of male spikelets being wider than those of hermaphrodite spikelets. Fruits are 2-3 mm long, oblong caryopses, truncate at the top and scattered mostly with the whole hermaphrodite spikelet.

Origin

Hordeum murinum is native to the Mediterranean region.

Worldwide distribution

Species widely spread in northwestern Europe, in the west of the USA and in all the temperate part of South America, in Tanzania, in South Africa, in Japan, in Australia, and in New Zealand.

Algeria : Common species in all the country until the oases of the northern Sahara.

https://www.gbif.org/species/7886346