Habit: 		Tufted annual, or winter annual.
Culms: 		10-35 cm. tall in small tufts, erect or usually decumbent at the base.
Blades: 	1-7 cm. long, 1-6 mm. wide, erect, flat, or involute when dry, scabrous, auricled.
Sheaths: 	Shorter than the internodes.
Ligule: 	Membranous, short, truncate.
Inflorescence: 	Spike erect, 2-7 cm. long, 1-1.5 cm. wide, finally exserted.
Spikelets: 	Alternately in 3's at each node of the articulate rachis, central spikelets
		sessile and perfect, the lateral ones on short pedicels, imperfect.
Glumes: 	2, first glume of the lateral spikelets and both glumes of fertile spikelet
		dilated above the base, attenuate into a slender awn 8-15 mm. long, equaling the awned
		lemma of the middle spikelet, rigid, falling together with the rachilla-joint;
		glumes equal, placed at the sides of the dorsally compressed floret
		which is turned with the back of the palea against the rachis of the spike.
Lemmas: 	Smooth, that of the central spikelet 6-8 mm. long, short-awned,
		those of the lateral spikelet smaller, stalked and awn-pointed.
Palea: 		Plains, waste places, and open, especially alkaline ground.  April-June.
Use: 		A troublesome weed.
Synonyms:	Hordeum pusillum Nutt. var. pubens A.S. Hitchc.