12 
BULLETIN 622^ U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Table II. — Scheme of classification of barley founded upon ferti^iry'^^fitinating density. 
Genus. 
Section. 
? .M »» 
Subsection. Species. 
- 
Hordeum 
■ 
vulgare 
Eu. vulgare 
intermedium 
vulgare. 
intermedium 
disiiehou 
fdistichon. 
Ideficiens. 
KEY TO THE SPECIES. 
The meaning of the graphic representation is made somewhat 
clearer bv consulting the key to the species. It will be noted that the 
absence of appendages on the lateral florets is used to separate the 
species intermedium. This distinction is in reality one of fertility, 
the most obvious indication of which is the absence of appendages on 
the lemma. These lateral florets are probably not comparable to the 
lateral florets of vulgare but to the lateral florets of distichon, differ- 
ing from the latter in having become fertile. 
Key to the species. 
All spikelets fertile (6-rowefl barley). 
Lemmas of all florets awnecl or hooded vulgare L. 
Lemmas of lateral florets bearing neither awns nor hoods. 
in term ediu m Kcke. 
Only the central spikelets fertile (2-rowed barley). 
Lateral spikelets consisting of outer glumes, lemma, palet. rachilla, and 
usually rudiments of the sexual organs ' distichon L. 
Lateral spikelets reduced, usually to only the outer glumes and rachilla. 
rarely more than one flowering glume present, and never rudiments of 
sexual organs deflciens Steud. 
Of these species the first three present no nomenclatural difficul- 
ties. Vulgare and distichon trace direct to Linnaeus (1753), and in- 
ferfnedium to Kornicke (1882, p. 125). In the fourth there is more 
question of priority. According to Kornicke and Werner (1885), 
Steudel described de-ftciens in 1842. Apparently there was no pub- 
lished description, the identification being only the name written on 
a herbarium sheet of Schimper's Abyssinian collection. The name 
first applied appears to have been decipiens and not deflciens. In 
1854 (p. 351) Steudel gives a very complete description of deflciens 
as a species. So far as the writer can learn, this is the first time the 
name was used in print. In May, 1842, Seringe (p. 194) in addi- 
tions to the genus Hordeum describes all the common forms of defi- 
cient barley under the variety ahyssinicum. 
In the key the only question arises in the separaticMi of the defi- 
cient 2-rowed from the normal 2-rowed barleys. Deficient types are 
