Annual up to 45 cm high; internodes and sheaths glabrous or scaberulous. Panicle contracted although the spikelets are on rather long filiform pedicels. Glumes unequal, narrowly lanceolate, 3-nerved, obtuse, the midnerve shortly excurrent, hairy on the back, the lower 7.5–9.5 mm long, the upper 10–11.5 mm long; lemma, including the callus, 3–4.5 mm long, papillose-scabrid; callus with 2 collars of hair, the lower, just behind the naked tip, with very short hairs all about the same length, the upper, at the summit of the callus, about half as long as the body of the lemma, the callus glabrous between the collars; column pilose, especially towards the junction of the awns, rarely almost glabrous, 7–13 mm long; central awn 4–7 cm long, plumose throughout except for the excurrent naked tip, sometimes only thinly hairy or almost glabrous below; lateral awns 1–1.6 cm long, glabrous.
