Annual up to 60 cm high; leaves flat or inrolled, always without crateriform glands on the margins. Panicle lanceolate to elliptic, 3–15 cm long, the spikelets evenly spaced or gathered into fascicles, the branchlets and pedicels often bearing crateriform glands. Spikelets linear, 6–15 mm long, 8- to 25-flowered, shedding their florets from below upwards, the paleas persistent on the tough rhachilla; glumes unequal, lanceolate, acute, without crateriform glands on the nerve, the lower 1–1.5 mm long, the upper 1.3–2.1 mm long; lemmas oblong-lanceolate in profile, papery, 1.7–2.3 mm long, scaberulous above, obtuse; palea-keels scabrid; anthers 3, c. 0.2 mm long. Grain elliptic-oblong, 0.6–1 mm long.
Range
N1–3 Mediterranean region, tropical Africa and south-western Asia.
