Annual or short-lived perennial up to 150 cm high; leaves flat with membranous ligule. Panicle very variable in shape, ranging from linear and contracted to loose and open with ascending branches, 5–55 cm long, the branches solitary or whorled. Spikelets elliptic to narrowly oblong, 1.3–3 mm long, 4- to 14-flowered, disarticulating between the florets, the rhachilla fragile; glumes subequal, narrowly ovate, 0.5–0.8 mm long, subacute to obtuse; lemmas broadly oblong-elliptic in profile, thinly membranous, 0.7–1 mm long, broadly obtuse; palea-keels smooth or scabrid; anthers 2, c. 0.2 mm long.
