246 A TEXT-BOOK OF GRASSES 
with cylindrical spikes and several setaceous glumes. All 
the species mentioned except cultivated barley have an 
articulated rachis that breaks up at maturity. 
Hordeum vulgare L. (H. sativum Jessen). (Fig. 62.) Cultivated 
barley. Annual; culms and leaves similar to those of wheat; auri- 
cles prominent, as much as 5 mm. long, glabrous; spike densely 
flowered, usually 3 to 4 inches long, excluding the long awns or 
beards, the rachis not disarticulating at maturity; spikelets in 3’s 
at each joint of the rachis; glumes about 14 inch long, narrow, the 
upper half narrowed into an awn; lemma fusiform, about % inch 
long, the upper portion narrowed into a very scabrous flat awn as 
much as 6 inches long, the rachilla of the spikelet extended behind 
the floret as a short hairy or scabrous pedicel lying in the furrow of 
the palea. In most of the forms of barley the grain is tightly 
inclosed in the lemma and palea. 
Beardless barley is a variety in which the awns are suppressed 
and converted into irregular short lobes or teeth (H. vulgare tri- 
furcatum Wenderoth). 
Schulz divides the cultivated barleys into 2 groups: (1) 
Hordeum distichum, the 2-rowed barleys, which he refers 
to H. spontaneum Koch as the wild prototype. (2) H. 
polystichum, the many-rowed barleys, which he refers to 
H. ischnatherum (Coss.) Schulz, as the wild prototype. 
(Mitt. Natf. Ges. Halle 1:18. 1911.) 
269. Elymus L.—Wild rye. A moderate-sized genus 
of temperate regions. Rachis continuous; spikelets usually 
2 at each node; glumes in pairs in front of the spikelets 
(the terminal spikelet having 2 opposite glumes) usually 
subulate or awned. 
The related genus Sitanion differs in having an articu- 
lated rachis. The glumes are usually subulate and 
extended into long awns. Several species are found in the 
western states. The mature joints of the disarticulated 
rachis with the attached spikelets are injurious to grazing 
animals, penetrating the ears, eyes and nostrils. 
