Annual; culms 5-50 cm high, tufted or solitary, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades up to 20 cm long, 2-8 mm wide, glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Spike oblong, strongly compressed, 2-7 (-12) cm long, green or tinged with purple; rhachis sparsely ciliate on the margins, fragile. Central spikelet sessile or with a pedicel up to 1.8 mm long; glumes lanceolate, long-awned, up to 26 mm long including the awn, fringed with hairs below; lemma lanceolate, 7-12 mm long, scabrid towards the tip; awn 18-50 torn long, anthers 0.2-1.4 mm long. Lateral spikelets well-developed, male or barren, pedicellate, glumes slightly dissimilar, the inner lanceolate, ciliate below, the outer setaceous, both long-awned, 16-30 mm long including the awn; lemma 7-11 mm long, with an awn 10-40 mm long; rhachilla extension slender or stout.

Lower Taxa

• Hordeum murinum subsp. glaucum (Steud.) Tzvelev
• Hordeum murinum subsp. leporinum (Link) Arcang.
• Hordeum murinum subsp. murinum

Related Synonym(s):

• Hordem leporinum Link = Hordeum murinum subsp. leporinum (Link) Arcang.
• Hordeum glaucum Steud. = Hordeum murinum subsp. glaucum (Steud.) Tzvelev