Description:

• Annual or perennial, tufted or culm solitary, sometimes geniculate
• Leaf blade linear, expanded; ligule an unfringed membrane
• Inflorescence a dense, bristly false spike; rachis usually fragile (tough in cultivated forms); spikelets in groups of 3, triads falling together as unit, 2 laterals pedicelled, central one sessile or pedicelled, usually all awned, rarely one lateral spikelet absent or represented by 2 glumes only
• Central spikelet laterally to dorsiventrally compressed; glumes side by side, linear-lanceolate, 1-3-nerved, awned and bristle-like
• Floret 1, bisexual, rachilla extension present; lemma lanceolate, membranous, rounded on back, acuminate to awned, glabrous, usually obscurely 5-nerved, awned; awn scabrid; palea ± as long as lemma, lanceolate, acute or truncate, sometimes bidentate, membranous
• Lodicules 2, lanceolate, ciliate or ciliolate, hyaline
• Stamens 3
• Ovary villous above; styles distinct, plumose

• Lateral spikelet sterile or male; usually smaller than central spikelet, often reduced to awns; lemma, if present, awnless to awned, often with a rachilla extension; glumes bristle-like and long-awned, often ciliate
• x = 7 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Hordeum L.
  • Linnaeus: 84 (1753)
  • Stapf: 464 (1899)
  • Chippindall: 71 (1955)
  • Bothmer et al.: 539 (1980)
  • Humphries: 204 (1980)
  • Dewey: 209 (1984)
  • Löve: 435 (1984)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 154 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 180 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 471 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 40, temperate regions throughout the world
• Southern Africa: Species 5, 1 indigenous: Hordeum capense Thunb., North-West, Lesotho, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape