annual; culms fascicled, geniculate, ascending or erect, 1 1/2–3 ft. long, glabrous, smooth or slightly rough in the upper part, 4–5-noded, internodes at length more or less exserted, simple or branched below; leaves glabrous; sheaths striate, smooth, lower sometimes purplish; ligule very short, truncate from an auricled base; blades linear, long tapering to a very slender point, 4–8 in. by 1–2 1/2 lin., flat, somewhat rigid, scabrid on the upper side and along the margins; spikes erect, 1/2–1 ft. long, of numerous (12–30) spikelets; axis rather slender, smooth except at the scabrid margins; internodes (except the lowest) distinctly shorter than the spikelets; spikelets strongly compressed from the side, elliptic-oblong, 6–8 lin. long, obliquely erect, 9–11-flowered, uppermost floret long exserted from the glume; upper glume narrow, oblong, subobtuse, somewhat rounded on the back, equalling the contiguous floret or nearly so, strongly 7-nerved; valves awned or muticous, oblong, 2 1/2–3 lin. long, subherbaceous-chartaceous, light green, or tinged with purple above, 5-nerved, smooth; awn (when present) straight, very fine, 2 1/2–4 lin. long, close to the short hyaline minutely 2-toothed tip; keels of pales green, crested, scabrid; anthers 1 1/2–2 lin. long; grain linear-oblong, semiterete, 1 1/2 lin. long, deeply channelled in front, adhering to valve and pale. null
