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Landraces of barley and tough rachis genotypes selected from natural crosses of ssp. spontaneum with ssp. vulgare were evaluated in Cyprus under rainfed conditions with the best commercially grown grain varieties. Landraces, eliminated from cultivation around 40 years ago, gave grain yields comparable to those to the best commercially grown varieties, Athenais and Kantara. Also, selected genotypes from the natural hybrids gave grain yields approaching those of Athenais and Kantara, in spite of the fact that human interference was limited only to visual individual plant selection in natural habitats, followed by the evaluation of 44 genotypes in the present studies. Locally adapted landraces and selected genotypes from the natural hybrids expressed valuable measurable traits, such as 1000-grain weight, crude protein content, volume weight, lodging and disease resistance, which could be used in breeding programmes. The heading date of these 44 selected tough rachis genotypes was within a narrow range, which lies within the optimum range determined by long term studies for Cyprus. Furthermore, non-visible gene complexes for adaptation to moisture, heat and other stresses present in land races and natural hybrids could be exploited for breeding in semi-arid areas. These natural hybrids apparently contributed towards maintaining genes present in landraces which became extinct long time ago.