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HORDEUM DISTICHON. 
Common Barley * 
For Class, Order, and Nat. Ord. see preceding 
Article. 
Gen. Char. Calyx lateral, two-valved, one-flowered, three- 
fold. 
Spec. Char. Flowers all perfect, awned ; two of the rows 
more erect than the rest. 
The native country of this plant has not been satisfactorily ascer- 
tained : it is said to be a native of Tartary, and also to have been 
found wild in Sicily and Russia. It has long been cultivated in 
almost every country of Europe. 
The Hordeum Distichon is an annual ; the ear or spike is flat, 
with a double row of defective or male florets on each flat side, and 
a single row of fertile florets on each ridge ; the valves of the calyx 
are linear, and one-half shorter than the corolla, or inner chafi^, 
which terminates in a straight, serrated awn, or beard, sixteen times 
its own length. When ripe the husk is coriaceous, angular, and 
continues close about the grain, which is ovate, grooved, and 
angular. 
Pearl barley is prepared by grinding oft' the husk of the rough 
grain, by means of machinery, it is afterwards rounded in a mill, 
which at the same time gives the granules a polish. In this state, 
barley consists almost solely of amylaceous matter ; it has little or 
no taste, and is inodorous. 
Qualities, &c. According to Fourcroy and Vauquelin, barley 
contains starch, sugar, a small portion of unctuous coagulable oil, an 
animal substance partly soluble in water and partly forming gluti- 
nous flocculi, phosphate of lime and magnesia, silica, iron, and a 
little acetic acid. 
Economical Uses, &c. Barley is never used medicinally in 
substance ; as an article of food it is less used than it was formerly. 
* Fig. c. the flower, magnified. 
