Hordeum marinum

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Hordeum marinum
Hordeum marinum plants.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Clade: Commelinids
Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Subfamily: Pooideae
Genus: Hordeum
Species:
H. marinum
Binomial name
Hordeum marinum
Synonyms
List
  • Critesion marinum(Huds.) Á.LöveHordeum maritimumWith.Hordeum secalinum subsp. marinum(Huds.) Fouill. & Litard.

Hordeum marinum, commonly known as sea barley or (subspecies gussoneanum) Mediterranean barley, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae that grows on bare ground on the shores of Europe and North Africa. It is also found in inland salt flats such as the Pannonian grasslands of Hungary, and it is widely established outside its range in temperate regions of both the north and south hemispheres. It is an annual, producing copious seed when habitat conditions are right, but not persisting in competition with other species. Although it is a relative of an important crop species, it has no uses itself.

Contents

Description

A single inflorescence of sea barley Hordeum marinum spike.jpg
A single inflorescence of sea barley

Sea barley is an annual with spreading to erect stems that grow to about 40 cm tall. The leaf sheaths are somewhat inflated, relative to the stem size, and can be glabrous or minutely hairy. They have small rounded auricles and a short membranous ligule about 0.5 mm long. The leaf blade is similarly glabrous or hairy, and is up to 4 mm wide.

The inflorescence is a false raceme up to 5 cm long and laterally compressed, with numerous clusters ("triads") of 3 one-flowered spikelets. Within each triad, the central spikelet is sessile (stalkless) and fertile while the two lateral ones are borne on short pedicels and are barren. Each spikelet consists of a single floret, with a lemma up to 8 mm long and an awn projecting from its tip, up to 22 mm long. On either side of each lemma is a bristle-like glume up to 22 mm long.

Sea barley is wind-pollinated or self-pollinating. The mature spikes become brittle, and break up into small clusters of fruits, which are often dispersed by floodwaters in the winter, or by the movement of livestock. Germination takes place in both the autumn and the spring. [1]

Taxonomy

The name Hordeum marinum was coined by the English botanist William Hudson in his Flora Anglica of 1778, giving as a synonym the pre-Linnean polynomial Gramen secalinum maritimum minus ("lesser sea meadow-barley"). He gave it the common name "sea barley-grass".

It has few synonyms. William Withering named it Hordeum maritimum in 1787, but that name does not stand as Hudson's came earlier. [2]

Two subspecies of sea barley are recognised. Throughout most of its range H. marinum ssp. marinum is the common one, but around the Mediterranean basin ssp. gussoneanum(Parl.) Thell. (Mediterranean barley) is commoner. [3] [2] Both are widely established elsewhere in the world. The difference between them is slight: ssp. gussonianum has a smaller and wingless inner glume to the lateral spikelets, and a more variable chromosome number (2n = 14 or 28). [1]

Identification

Sea barley (left) and meadow barley are very similar. Hordeum marinum vs secalinum.jpg
Sea barley (left) and meadow barley are very similar.

Sea barley often grows in the same places as meadow barley or wall barley. Meadow barley is perennial, and so will often have tillers, and the leaf sheaths are not inflated. Wall barley has three fertile flowers in each triad, and the awns are ciliate (hairy). Both meadow barley and wall barley also have hairy leaf sheaths, whereas sea barley often does not. [1] [4]

Distribution and status

Sea barley is native throughout Europe, North Africa and as far east as central Asia. It is also established as an introduction in North and South America, South Africa, Australia and Japan. [2] Although it is primarily a coastal plant, it is by no means restricted to seaside areas. [5]

Its IUCN threat status, globally, is Least Concern, [6] reflecting the fact that it is quite widespread and populations are healthy. In Britain, which is at the northern edge of its range, it is classified as vulnerable, because there may have been a decrease in its range in recent decades, [7] although in fact there has been an increase in the population extent, as measured by the number of occupied grid squares. [8]

In France its distribution and status follow the same pattern as in Britain: it is mostly restricted to places near the coast, with just casual populations inland. Its status is LC, except in places like Picardy and Pas-de-Calais in the north, where it declines to Critically Endangered. [9]

Habitat and ecology

Habitat of sea barley at Elmley National Nature Reserve, Kent Hordeum marinum Elmley.jpg
Habitat of sea barley at Elmley National Nature Reserve, Kent

Sea barley grows on patches of bare ground near to the sea, typically along paths or tracks or sometimes in the upper parts of salt marshes. It is also a characteristic plant of the Pannonian inland salt grasslands of south-eastern Europe [10] and, very occasionally, it is found as a roadside halophyte, many miles from the sea. [11]

It needs a lack of competition from other plants, which is usually created by fluctuating water levels or some form of disturbance, such as trampling and grazing by livestock. It flowers and fruits early in the season (typically in June in northern Europe), and reproduces entirely by seed. [1]

In Britain, it is a purely lowland plant, not being found higher than 200 m above sea level. [12] [8]

Sea barley is not recorded in any vegetation community in Britain, [13] possibly because it was too rare to have been sampled. In Europe, however, it is considered a characteristic species of several EUNIS habitats:

There are several fungi that attack sea barley: the smut fungus Ustilago bullata produces galls in the flowers, while Tilletia controversa creates smut balls in the seeds; meanwhile, several species cause damage to the leaves, including barley powdery mildew, Puccinia hordei (including P. hordei-murini and P. hordei-maritimi), and a fungus called stem rust is known to infect the culms.

There is also an aphid, Metopolophium dirhodum which has been found on sea barley, and a species of thrips, Limothrips angulicornis, which feeds on the leaves. [14]

Related Research Articles

<i>Hordeum</i> Genus of grasses

Hordeum is a genus of annual and perennial plants in the grass family. The species are native throughout the temperate regions of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas.

<i>Bromus</i> Genus of grasses

Bromus is a large genus of grasses, classified in its own tribe Bromeae. They are commonly known as bromes, brome grasses, cheat grasses or chess grasses. Estimates in the scientific literature of the number of species have ranged from 100 to 400, but plant taxonomists currently recognize around 160–170 species.

<i>Lolium pratense</i> Species of grass

Lolium pratense, meadow fescue is a perennial species of grass, which is often used as an ornamental in gardens, and is also an important forage crop. It grows in meadows, roadsides, old pastures, and riversides on moist, rich soils, especially on loamy and heavy soils.

<i>Hordeum jubatum</i> Species of flowering plant

Hordeum jubatum, with common names foxtail barley, bobtail barley, squirreltail barley, and intermediate barley, is a perennial plant species in the grass family Poaceae. It occurs wild mainly in northern North America and adjacent northeastern Siberia. However, as it escaped often from gardens it can be found worldwide in areas with temperate to warm climates, and is considered a weed in many countries. The species is a polyploid and originated via hybridization of an East Asian Hordeum species with a close but extinct relative of Californian H. brachyantherum. It is grown as an ornamental plant for its attractive inflorescences and when done flowering for its inflorescence.

Powdery mildew is a fungal disease of barley caused by Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei. The disease has a worldwide distribution and is most damaging in cool, wet climates. The host range of the form species hordei is restricted to barley and other Hordeum species.

<i>Bromus hordeaceus</i> Species of grass

Bromus hordeaceus, the soft brome, is an annual or biennial species of grass in the grass family (Poaceae). It is also known in North America as bull grass, soft cheat, and soft chess.

<i>Hordeum murinum</i> Species of grass

Hordeum murinum is a species of flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae, commonly known as wall barley or false barley. It is a close relative of cultivated barley.

<i>Hordeum pusillum</i> Species of grass

Hordeum pusillum, also known as little barley, is an annual grass native to most of the United States and southwestern Canada. It arrived via multiple long-distance dispersals of a southern South American species of Hordeum about one million years ago. Its closest relatives are therefore not the other North American taxa like meadow barley or foxtail barley, but rather Hordeum species of the Pampas of central Argentina and Uruguay. It is less closely related to the Old World domesticated barley, from which it diverged about 12 million years ago. It is diploid.

<i>Chloropyron maritimum</i> Species of flowering plant

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<i>Hordeum brachyantherum</i> Species of grass

Hordeum brachyantherum, known by the common name meadow barley, is a species of barley. It is native to western North America from Alaska to northern Mexico, coastal areas of easternmost Russia (Kamchatka), and a small area of coastal Newfoundland.

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<i>Bromus catharticus</i> Species of grass

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<i>Bromus ciliatus</i> Species of grass

Bromus ciliatus is a species of brome grass known by the common name fringed brome. It is native to most of North America, including most of Canada, most of the United States except for some portions of the South, and northern Mexico. It is a plant of many habitats, including temperate coniferous forest. The specific epithet ciliatus is Latin for "ciliate", referring to the delicate hairs of the leaf blades.

<i>Digitaria ischaemum</i> Species of plant

Digitaria ischaemum is a species of crabgrass known by the common names smooth crabgrass and small crabgrass. It is native to Europe and Asia, but it is known throughout much of the warm temperate world as an introduced species and often a common roadside and garden weed. It is an annual grass producing an inflorescence with two or more narrow branches lined with tiny spikelets.

<i>Bromus kalmii</i> Species of grass

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<i>Festuca vivipara</i> Species of grass

Festuca vivipara, the viviparous sheep's-fescue, is a species of grass native to northern Europe, northern Asia, and subarctic North America. The specific epithet vivipara is Latin, referring to the florets' alteration to leafy tufts. The plant can have a diploid number of 28, 49, 56, or 63, though numbers of 21, 35, and 42 have also been reported.

Melica kozlovii is a species of grass found on mountain slopes in Mongolia and China at 2,000–3,900 metres (6,600–12,800 ft) above sea level.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Cope, Tom; Gray, Alan (2009). Grasses of the British Isles. London: Botanical Society of the British Isles. ISBN   978-0-901158-420.
  2. 1 2 3 "Hordeum marinum Huds. | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science". Plants of the World Online. Retrieved 2024-12-26.
  3. ↑ "Hordeum marinum subsp. gussoneanum (Parl.) Thell". www.gbif.org. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  4. ↑ Stace, C.A. (2019). New Flora of the British Isles (4th ed.). Suffolk: C&M Floristics. ISBN   978-1-5272-2630-2.
  5. ↑ "Hordeum marinum Huds". www.gbif.org. Retrieved 2024-12-26.
  6. ↑ Group), Nigel Maxted (Crop Wild Relatives Specialist; expert), Laura Rhodes (Crop Wild Relatives; Birmingham/CWR), Isabelle Bradley (University of (2014-08-01). "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Hordeum marinum". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Archived from the original on 2024-12-08.
  7. ↑ "The Vascular Plant Red Data List for Great Britain (Species Status No. 7) | JNCC Resource Hub". hub.jncc.gov.uk. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  8. 1 2 "PlantAtlas". plantatlas2020.org. Retrieved 2024-12-27.
  9. 1 2 "Orge maritime". Inventaire National du Patrimoine Naturel. Retrieved 27 December 2024.
  10. ↑ Polunin, Oleg; Walters, Martin (1985). A Guide to the Vegetation of Britain and Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   0-19-217713-3.
  11. ↑ Crawley, M.J. (2005). The Flora of Berkshire. Harpenden: Brambleby Books. ISBN   0-9543347-4-4.
  12. ↑ Pearman, D.A. "Altitudinal Limits of British Plants, 2021".
  13. ↑ Rodwell, J.S. (2000). British Plant Communities, vol. 5: Maritime communities and vegetation of open habitats. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   0-521-39167-9.
  14. ↑ "Hordeum marinum – Plant Parasites of Europe". bladmineerders.nl. Retrieved 2024-12-26.
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