Restorying pillas: Biocultural complexity in the history and revival of the small naked oat

This interdisciplinary study reassesses the past, present and future of the small naked oat-

a forgotten European crop-by integrating historical and botanical research with my experience of leading a collective effort to reintroduce it from seed banks to farms. My findings underscore the importance of biocultural complexity in understanding crop diversity loss and shaping meaningful responses to it.

Drawing on archival material and fieldname records, I illuminate the crop's former significance in Britain, Ireland and northern France, where it thrived on poorer soils and was valued for its "naked" grains which-unlike those of regular oats-do not need de-hulling. The richest accounts are from Cornwall, where it was known as "pillas". I also re-examine its botanical identity, long obscured by taxonomic confusion with the large naked oat, which is traditional to China and Mongolia but now more widely cultivated. Although evolutionarily distinct, it bears a superficial resemblance, and the name Avena nuda L.-originally applied to the small naked oat-has been unofficially transferred to it. In partnership with researchers at the University of Aberystwyth, I also explore the small naked oat's relatedness to non-naked Avena strigosa, as well as the genetic and phenotypic diversity, nutritional potential, and possible origins of ex situ seed.

Deepening my enquiry, I investigate several historical episodes of interest in naked oats, driven by various motivations. I explore one of these-an early-twentieth-century effort by the "Cornish Revivalists" to reintroduce pillas, complicated by a case of mistaken botanical identity-through the lens of "language revitalisation"; inspired by my Grandad, a linguist active in the Cornish language revival, who introduced me to pillas. In another, I examine the large naked oat's recurring portrayal as a novel crop, tracing its history of attempted "improvement" since arriving in Europe in the early-nineteenth century. I apply these insights to my own crop "revival" effort-involving many collaborators-which led to pillas being harvested in 2023 on Cornish farms for the first time in over 150 years. This is not a romantic tale of seeds lost and found, but a complex and ongoing process of biocultural transformation I have come to understand as "restorying".