Hordeum vulgare L.
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Hordeum vulgare L.
Poaceae (Grass Family)EuropeCommon BarleyCultivated Barley |
April Photo
Plant Characteristics:
Erect annual, 6-12 dm. tall; blades 5-15 mm. wide; auricles long; rachis
continuous; spike 2-10 cm. long excluding awns; the 3 spikelets sessile,
fertile; glumes divergent at base, narrow, nerveless, stout awned, not ciliate;
awn of lemma straight, erect, mostly 10-15 cm. long
Habitat:
Sometimes found in waste places and fields as an escape from cult.
April-July.
Name:
Latin, hordeum, barley and vulgaris common.
(Jaeger 120,282).
General:
Uncommon in the study area, having been found only on a bank below
Eastbluff, north end, and again along Back Bay Dr. in the Big Canyon area.
Photographed in both places. (my
comments). Barley
was cultivated at the time that writing was invented, and crops of it were known
in Egypt as early as 1680 B.C. Egyptians
claim that barley was the first of the cereals made use of by man, and they
trace its introduction to the goddess Isis.
Barley was extensively cultivated in England and appears on the coins of
the early Britons. It was
frequently used for making beer by many ancient cultures.
After their introduction, the seeds of several species of barley were
used by the Indians in Utah, Nevada, Oregon and California. Aside from making
parched-seed flour, some tribes made a coffee substitute from the singed seed
coats. (Clarke 181). Known to accumulate free nitrates in
quantities capable of causing death or distress in cattle.
(Fuller 386).
Barley has been grown by the Cahuilla, Indians of the Colorado desert the
San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains, since at least the mid-nineteenth
century. This European crop plant
was observed being grown by the Yuman Indians of the Colorado River in 1775 by
Anza, but whether it reached the Cahuilla from Indian groups to the east or the
Spanish missions on the coast in unknown. (Bean
and Saubel 78).
The recent discovery of the remains of a 4,500 year-old bakery on the
Giza Plateau may be a key element in determining the sociopolitical structure of
Egypt in the 27th Century BC. The
bakery, along with a massive wall that cordoned off part of the site, suggests
that Egypt's rulers also lived there for much of the year.
Recently unearthed by University of Chicago archeologist Mark
Lehner,....it is one of a series of discoveries reinforcing the growing idea
that Giza was not a rude labor camp use only for construction of the pyramids
but rather-with perhaps as many as 200,000 residents-antiquity's first
large-scale, sophisticated city.....Archeologists already knew much about the
process of baking bread in Egypt because the steps are shown in a frieze on a
wall of the tomb of King Ty, a Fifth Dynasty ruler.
On one side of each room in the bakery were large bowls, perhaps a yard
in diameter, in which the bread was mixed.
The dough was then placed in baking pots that were stacked in an open
hearth on the opposite side of the room. Remnants
of grains found in the area suggest that the chief ingredient was barley, which
would have produced a dense, dark loaf. The
team has also been looking for a brewery, since such facilities are believed to
have been closely associated with bakeries. Beer and
bread were staples in the Egyptian diet. (Maugh,
Thomas H. II. Ancient Bakery May Be Key To Egypt's History" Los Angeles
Times March 20, 1992, Orange County Edition: A5).
Text Ref:
Munz, Flora So. Calif. 977; Roberts 47.
Photo Ref:
April 2 84 # 13; May 1 87 # 9.
Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by F. Roberts.
Computer Ref: Plant Data 49.
Have plant specimen.
Last edit 4/17/03.
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