Hordeum bulbosumL.

bulbous barley

WFO wfo-0000874695 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Hordeum bulbosum, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. a Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-10 / obs. 198314882

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K001451120
Filed as
Hordeum bulbosum L.
Det. by
Jacobsen, N.
Collected
Reverchon, E. 1883-06-12
Origin
GR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 31 botanical countries

Regions where Hordeum bulbosum is native: Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaAfghanistanCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqKazakhstanKirgizstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanAlbaniaBulgariaGreeceItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe Sardegna
Native distribution of Hordeum bulbosum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Cyprus CYP
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
Albania ALB EUROPE
Bulgaria BUL
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 356 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -7.4 °C -0.1 °C 8.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.1 °C 26.4 °C 33.1 °C
Annual rainfall 450 mm 771 mm 1,104 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 3 mm 101 mm 182 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 356 research-grade observations of Hordeum bulbosum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 14 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Critesion bulbosum (L.) Á.Löve
  • Hordeum brevicomum C.Presl
  • Hordeum bulbosum subsp. nodosum (L.) B.R.Baum
  • Hordeum bulbosum var. bourgaei Boiss.
  • Hordeum bulbosum var. brevispicatum Post
  • Hordeum bulbosum var. lycium Asch. & Graebn.
  • Hordeum bulbosum var. minus Hausskn.
  • Hordeum kaufmannii Regel
  • Hordeum lycium Boiss.
  • Hordeum nodosum L.
  • Hordeum nodosum Ucria
  • Hordeum strictum Desf.
  • Zeocriton nodosum (L.) P.Beauv.
  • Zeocriton strictum (Desf.) P.Beauv.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.