annual; culms fascicled erect, or ascending, 1–2 ft. high, robust, about 5-noded with flowering branches from some or most of the nodes, sheathed all along, glabrous or hairy below the panicle or nodes; leaves more or less (often very copiously) hirsute or villous, rarely subglabrous; sheaths lax; ligules membranous up to 1/2 lin. long, ciliate; blades linear to linear-lanceolate, long tapering to a fine point, subrigid to flaccid, margins scabrid; panicle often very large, decompound, lax, con-tracted, then opening out from the top downwards, up to 1 ft. or more by 3/4 ft.; rhachis angular, often sparsely hairy, smooth below, scabrid above; branches solitary, subopposite or 3-nate, or irregularly approximate, filiform, angular, scabrid, undivided for 1/4–1 in. from the base, then repeatedly and very laxly divided, the longest up to 1 ft. long; branchlets long, finely filiform to capillary, at length divaricate, scabrid; pedicels very unequal, from 1/2 lin. to more than 1/2 in. long, capillary, very scabrid, tips subclavate; spikelets oblong to lanceolate-oblong, acuminate, from less than 1 to 1 1/4 lin. long, greenish or purplish, glabrous; lower glume broadly ovate, acute, equalling about 1/2 of the spikelet, 3- to sub-5-nerved; upper glume oblong, acuminate, from less than 1 to 1 1/4 lin. long, 5- to 7-nerved; lower floret reduced to the valve, which very much resembles the upper glume; hermaphrodite floret oblong, subacute, 3/4– 7/8 lin. long, very smooth, shining, yellowish; valve faintly 7-nerved; anthers 1/3 lin. long. null
