Annual; culms 35–80 cm. high, erect or spreading. Leaf-blades 10–25 cm. long and 4–8 mm. wide; sheaths loosely hairy. Panicles loose or somewhat contracted, up to 25 cm. long but variable in size and bearing few to many spikelets, nodding. Spikelets loosely 5–8-flowered, oblong to wedge-shaped, 3–5 cm. long; glumes finely pointed, the lower subulate, 15–23 mm. long, 1–3-nerved, the upper narrowly lanceolate, 20–32 mm. long, 3–5-nerved; lemmas narrowly lanceolate in side view, 22–36 mm. long, herbaceous with hyaline margins, 7-nerved, scabrid, acuminately bilobed, awned from 4–7 mm. below the tip; awn 3.5–6 cm. long, straight, scabrid; callus oblong, ± 1 mm. long, obtuse; palea shorter than the lemma, sparsely and stiffly ciliate on the keels; anthers 2–3, 0.8–1.5 mm. long.
