Tufted annual with fairly slender ascending culms up to 45 cm. high. Leaf-blades 6–26 cm. long, 3–6 mm. wide, flat or loosely folded, sparsely pilose, abruptly pointed; ligule ± 1 mm. long, truncate. Inflorescence composed of 2–8 short broad spikes alternating on a short axis towards the top of the culm, often forming a compact cluster; spikes oblong to ovate, 1.5–3 cm. long, ascending or spreading, pale green usually tinged with grey. Spikelets 5–15-flowered, ovate to broadly ovate, 7–11 mm. long, closely overlapping on the narrowly winged rhachis, disarticulating between the florets but occasionally a lemma falling before its palea; glumes subequal, 2.8–4.2 mm. long, winged on the keel, the lower 1-nerved, narrowly oblong in profile, subacute, the upper 3-nerved, oblong in profile, acute to obtuse; lemmas broadly lanceolate to narrowly ovate in profile, 3.3–5.2 mm. long, 1–3 subsidiary nerves close to each side of the central keel, the keel scabrid, the tip cuspidate or obtuse and mucronate. Grain laterally compressed, broadly oblong in profile, 1–1.2 mm. long, deeply sulcate on the hilar side, the surface obliquely ridged, finely and densely granular, the free pericarp splitting irregularly along a central hyaline band, often shedding the grain before the floret disarticulates, the conspicuous persistent styles protruding from the florets.
