''Hordeum comosum'' is a species of

wild barley ''Hordeum spontaneum'', commonly known as wild barley or spontaneous barley, is the wild form of the grass in the family Poaceae that gave rise to the cereal barley (''Hordeum vulgare''). Domestication is thought to have occurred on two occasio ...

in the family

Poaceae Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

. It is native to Chile and western and southern Argentina, and has been introduced to the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...

. A widespread perennial grass, it is an important

forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used m ...

as it is relished by sheep.

References

comosum Forages Flora of northern Chile Flora of central Chile Flora of southern Chile Flora of Northwest Argentina Flora of South Argentina Plants described in 1830 {{Pooideae-stub