annual; culms geniculate, ascending or erect, simple or branched, up to 1 ft. long, weak, very slender, glabrous, smooth, 3-noded; sheaths loose or the upper tighter, glabrous, smooth; ligules very short, truncate; blades linear, gradually tapering, acute, up to 2 in. by 1/2–1 lin., very flaccid, glabrous, margins minutely scabrid; panicle linear, very slender, up to 3 in. long, flaccid; rhachis filiform, flexuous, glabrous; branches in distant semiwhorls, very unequal, up to 1 in. long, capillary, scaberulous; pedicels up to 4 lin. long; spikelets greenish, erect, 1 1/2 lin. long; glumes subequal, lanceolate, acute, very thin, 5–7-nerved; empty valves very unequal, the lower linear-oblong, obtuse, 3/4 lin. long, 1-nerved, shortly bearded at the base, loosely pubescent, the upper oblong, obtuse, almost 1 1/2 lin. long, muticous or mucronate, 5-nerved, loosely pubescent, with 2 unequally lobed appendages at the base; fertile valve elliptic-oblong, subobtuse, 1 lin. long, loosely pubescent, 1- (or very obscurely 3–5-) nerved; pale nerveless; lodicules glabrous; stamen usually 1, rarely 3; anthers 1/4 lin. long; stigmas brushlike; grain 3/4 lin. long. null
