annual; culms scantily fascicled, erect or suberect, slender, 3/4–1 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, few-noded, upper 2 internodes occupying 3/4 or more of the culm, exserted; sheaths rather lax, thin, striate, ciliate along the margins, lower short, villous in the upper part; ligule a fringe of short hairs; blades linear, acute, 1–1 1/2 in. by 1/2–1 lin. (upper very short), more or less spreading, flat, soft (at least the lower), shortly villous, eglandular; panicle flaccid, lax, meagre, sometimes reduced to 2 or 3 spikelets, about 2 in. long; lowest branches 3–2-nate, spreading or nodding, 2–1-spiculate, finely filiform, 4–9 lin. long; spikelets more or less erect at the incurved tips of the pedicels, 7–8 lin. long; glumes equal, very narrow, lanceolate-linear in profile, setaceously acuminate, purplish-brown except at the straw-coloured subhyaline margins and tip, sparingly hairy near the margins and sparingly scaberulous in the upper part, 3-nerved, nerves very close; valves linear in profile, body 3 1/2 lin. long, thinly chartaceous, finely puberulous towards the tip, obscurely 7-nerved; lobes distinct, with a straight bristle 7–9 lin. long from the inner angle; awn about 15 lin. long, stout below the bend; callus very slender, acute, 1 lin. long, minutely villous; pales equal to the body of the valves, entire, puberulous near the tip; lodicules glabrous. null