Naked Oat

Avena nuda (hulless oat, naked oat) is a species of grass with edible seeds in the oat genus Avena.

When threshed, the hull separates quite readily from the grain.

Naked oats are thought to have originated in China where they have been grown for centuries and used for both feed and food, and then migrated from China to Europe, where naked oats were grown in Britain as early as the middle of the sixteenth century.

Rather than being a variant of common oat, analysis of sequenced genomic data of 100 oat plants from around the world provides evidence that hulled oat (Avena sativa) and naked oat diverged around 51,000 years ago and were likely domesticated independently in Europe and China.