Hordeum murinum

Wall barley, Wall Barley

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Conservation status: Cal-IPC Yes

Wall barley is a naturalized annual grass found throughout California's agricultural and disturbed landscapes at low to moderate elevations. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces green to glaucous seed heads occasionally tinged with reddish or brownish tones, with distinctive awned spikelets 3 to 12 centimeters long. Growing with erect or sometimes prostrate stems 15 to 110 centimeters tall, it has smooth or slightly hairy stems with nodes that remain glabrous. Its leaf blades are narrow, 2 to 5 millimeters wide and up to 28 centimeters long, with glabrous or scarcely hairy surfaces. The seed heads are notable for their breaking axis and long awns measuring 20 to 50 millimeters, which give the plant a distinctive bristly appearance.

California counties: Los Angeles, Riverside, San Luis Obispo, San Bernardino, Yolo, Orange, Imperial, Fresno, Kern, San Diego, Tulare, Glenn, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Alameda, Inyo, Kings, Santa Cruz, El Dorado, Amador, Colusa, San Joaquin, Placer, Contra Costa, Tehama, Humboldt, San Francisco, Butte, Alpine, San Mateo, Solano, Sonoma, Monterey, Napa, Sacramento, Mariposa, Lake, Sutter, Marin, Santa Clara

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.