Annual, rooting at the lower nodes, up to 5 ft. or more high. Culms erect, stout, terete or grooved on the side facing a branch, branched upwards, up to 9-noded with the upper nodes bearded, pubescent towards the inflorescence, otherwise glabrous and smooth. Leaf-sheaths terete, shorter than the internodes, striate, glabrous or hirsute with stiff tubercle-based hairs; ligule very short, truncate, densely ciliate with hairs up to 1 1/2 lin. long; blade linear, contracted at the base, finely acute, up to 1 ft. or more long and 7 lin. wide, flat, firm, glabrous or hispid on both surfaces, scaberulous above and on the cartilaginous margins, midrib prominent and rounded below, channelled above towards the base. False spike dense, cylindric, 3 1/2–5 in. long, 5–6 lin. wide (exclusive of the bristles), yellowish; rhachis terete, slender, obscurely ribbed, densely pubescent or villous, closely beset with the minute stumps of the deciduous involucres; involucres sessile, minutely hairy at the base, at length horizontally spreading or deflexed; bristles up to 70 to each involucre, very slender, free to the base, of unequal length, the outer shorter, varying in length, scaberulous, the inner (8–14) ciliate around the spikelets and scaberulous above, subequal and up to 3 1/2 lin. long or more often with one stouter than the rest and up to 9 lin. long. Spikelets solitary or paired, pedicelled with the pedicel up to 1/4 lin. long, lanceolate, oblong or lanceolate-oblong, 2 1/2–3 lin. long, slightly gibbous, glabrous. Glumes broad, obtuse, rotundate or truncate, up to 1/2 lin. long, hyaline and nerveless, or the lower smaller or suppressed. Lower floret ♂ or barren and reduced to the valve: valve when flattened lanceolate-oblong, very obtuse, mucronulate, as long as the spikelet or slightly shorter, membranous, 3-nerved, scaberulous on the nerves at the apex, or reduced to a thin 1-nerved scale 1/2 lin. long; valvule lanceolate, as long as the valve or more often slightly longer, 2-fid, scaberulous on the back and along the keels, or quite suppressed. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve when flattened ovate, gradually tapering to an acute or slightly obtuse and mucronate tip, as long or nearly as long as the spikelet, scaberulous near the margins and at the apex, 5–6-nerved, chartaceous, smooth and shining on the back below the prominently nerved tip; valvule lanceolate, acuminate, with a minutely truncate tip, as long as the valve and similar to it in texture, scaberulous on the flaps, back, and on the keels at the apex. Lodicules 0. Anthers 1 3/4 lin. long, with penicillate tips. Styles connate. Grain oblong, dorsally compressed, 1 1/3 lin. long, pale yellowish-brown.
