Flora of New Zealand Series

salt barley grass

Loosely tufted, rather stiff, green to bluish green annuals, 10-30-(45) cm, sometimes reduced to a single shoot. Leaf-sheath without auricles, lower densely and minutely pubescent, upper glabrous, the uppermost inflated. Ligule 0.3-0.4 mm, ciliate. Leaf-blade 1.5-7 cm × 1-3.5 mm, flat, acute, extremely minutely pubescent. Culm (4)-8-25-(35) cm, erect, or geniculate below, internodes glabrous. Raceme erect, dense-flowered, green, purplish, or brownish, oblong or ovate, (0.8)-2-6-(8) × 1.5-2.5-(3) cm, including awns; rachis fragile, margins hairy. Central ⚥ spikelet sessile; lateral spikelets Ø, on strong pedicels c. 1 mm. Lateral spikelets: glumes ± equal in length but dissimilar in shape, outer entirely awn-like, 13-22 mm, inner with a broad (0.5-1 mm) basal wing 3-5.5 mm, tipped by an awn 10-18 mm, both glumes overtopping lemma awns; lemma 3-6 mm, abaxially glabrous, adaxially with scattered hairs, tipped by scabrid awn 2.5-6 mm; palea = lemma, abaxially smooth but scabrid on keels near apex, adaxially minutely pubescent in upper ½; rachilla prolongation 1-1.5 mm. Central spikelet: glumes ± equal, similar, awn-like, scabrid, 13-20 mm, < awned lemma; lemma 6-7.5 mm, abaxially glabrous, adaxially minutely pubescent near base of scabrid awn 6-17 mm; palea = lemma, folded, scabrid on keels above, adaxially prickle-toothed near produced apex; rachilla prolongation 3.5-5 mm. Lodicules 1.0-1.25 mm, shortly ciliate, narrow. Anthers 1-1.5-(1.8) mm. Gynoecium: ovary c. 1.0 mm; stigma-styles 1.2-1.5 mm. Caryopsis 3-4-5 × 1-1.5 mm; embryo 0.5 mm.

S.: Marlborough, Canterbury. In low-lying moist coastal flats, in association with C. hystrix. FL Oct-Feb.

Naturalised from Eurasia.

The correct name in Hordeum is H. marinum Huds., Fl. Angl. ed. 2, 1: 57 (1778).