Hordeum vulgare
Bere Barley
Sarah Howard
Watercolour
Artwork size in cm, 46 x 36
£350.00
I was fascinated by the idea of an ancient landrace barley which is now only grown commercially on Orkney. However, it’s kept going elsewhere in research stations maintaining seed banks, including the James Hutton Institute, where I was kindly invited to its experimental farm overlooking the Firth of Tay, and was generously allowed to take stalks of Bere Barley.
No-one knows Bere Barley’s precise origins and it is highly variable. For certain, it’s a 6-row (rather than 2-row) Barley, it’s likely to have been introduced by Norsemen in the 8th century, or earlier, and it’s strongly associated with Scotland, especially in the northern and western isles where there are genetically diverse sub-populations.
Studying a cereal crop, understanding its anatomy, finding a suitable composition, how much detail to add, stretched my boundaries but has given me a good template with which to appreciate other grass-like plants. Bere Barley is quick growing and is called the 90-day barley. I nearly missed the crucial point of harvest and arrived a week late. But I managed to glean a few stray stalks which gave me some ripe grains, with their lovely dark pink stripes, with which to finish this particular journey.
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