Annual; culms up to 70 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades 5-16 cm long, 4-8 mm wide, glabrous or scabrid and sometimes sparsely hairy. Spike laterally compressed, 4-9 cm long (excluding the awns); rhachis densely hairy on the margins, fragile. Central spikelet sessile; glumes narrowly linear-lanceolate, long-awned, 13-23 mm long including the awn, densely silky hairy; lemma ovate-lanceolate 12-14 mm long, glabrous; awn 4-14 cm long, stout, very scabrid; anthers 23-3 mm long. Lateral spikelets male or vestigial, sessile; glumes like those of the central spikelet; lemma rounded-obtuse at the tip, 7-9 mm long.

Type locality: Caucasus.

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); Mediterranean region eastwards throughout the Middle East to Central Asia.

The ancestor of two-rowed barley. It is considered poor fodder and can become a serious weed of cereal crops. It is not always easy to distinguish it from two-rowed barley, particularly when the latter is self sown in ruderal sites.