Annual up to 60 cm high; leaves flat or inrolled, with crateriform glands along the margins. Panicle elliptic to ovate, 3–20 cm long, rather open but with short pedicels, the branchlets and pedicels bearing crateriform glands. Spikelets linear to narrowly oblong, 4.8–9 mm long, 8- to 16-flowered, shedding their lemmas from below upwards, the paleas persistent on the tough rhachilla; glumes subequal, lanceolate, 1.3–1.8 mm long, acute, sometimes with crateriform glands along the nerve; lemmas ovate in profile, papery, 1.4–1.8 mm long, scaberulous, obtuse; palea-keels scabrid; anthers 3, c. 0.3 mm long. Grain usually broadly oblong, (0.5–)0.6–0.8 mm long.
Tigat had (Som.). Differs from E. cilianensis mainly by the narrower spikelets, shorter lemmas and oblong grain, and from E. barrelieri mainly by the presence of crateriform glands along the leaf-margins.
