Hordeum vulgare has erect stems with few, alternate leaves its spike is notched on opposite sides, with three spikelets at each notch, each containing a small individual flower, or floret, that develops a kernel. All 3 spikelets in each row are fertile (H. distichon has only 1 fertile spikelet in each row).  Now rarely cultivated but persisting as occasional relic in waste places, etc.

Two-rowed Barley (Hordeum distichon) and other Hordeum, including some rarely recorded alien species. 

Annual.  Long awns > 10cm; spikelets in groups of three, the two lateral ones fertile and with long awns, unlike Two-rowed Barley where the two lateral florets in a spikelet are sterile and awnless or short-awned. 

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Sometimes found on arable land as a relic of cultivation, and on roadsides and waste ground as a bird-seed and grain casual.

Flowering June to August.

Annual

Widespread but occasional in Britain.

Rarely recorded in the wild in Leicestershire and Rutland.