annual; culms geniculately ascending, compressed below, 1–3 ft. high, glabrous, smooth, 3–5-noded, sheathed all along or the internodes at length more or less exserted, often branched below; sheaths striate, smooth, the lower often strongly compressed, whitish, glabrous except the lowest which are pubescent at the very base; ligules 0, junction of blade and sheath glabrous inside; blades linear from a scarcely narrowed base, tapering to an acute point, 3–8 in. by 3–6 lin., flat, subflaccid, glabrous, more or less glaucous, smooth above, scaberulous below, particularly towards the tip, margins finely cartilaginous, scabrid to almost smooth, midrib narrow; panicle erect, strict, or flexuous, 3–8 in. long; axis triquetrous, 3–5-angled, scabrid; branches few to about 15, solitary or 2-nate, suberect or spreading, distant except the uppermost, the lower 1–2 1/2 in. long, forming rather stout, dense, simple or subsimple, subsecund, sessile false spikes; rhachis triquetrous, scabrid, coarsely bristly, particularly near the nodes; pedicels fascicled or 2-nate, very short, up to 1/2 lin. long, scabrid, bristly at the base, tips obscurely discoid; spikelets crowded, ovoid-ellipsoid, cuspidate, 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long, greenish or tinged with purple; lower glume membranous, very broadly ovate, clasping at the base, obtuse to subcuspidate, 1/2 lin. long, 5-nerved, scaberulous; upper glume herbaceous-membranous, very broadly ovate-oblong, concave, acute or cuspidate, 1 1/2 lin. long, 5- or (near the tips) 7-nerved, rigidly pubescent between the scabrid and spinulous nerves; lower floret barren; valve similar to the upper glume, but flat or depressed on the back; cuspidate or produced into a scabrid, often long, awn, 7-nerved throughout or only towards the tips; pale elliptic, shorter by 1/4 than the valve, keels scaberulous above; hermaphrodite floret elliptic-ovate, cuspidate, over 1 lin. long, whitish or yellowish, smooth; valve subcoriaceous, 5-nerved; anthers oblong, scarcely 3/8 lin. long; grain broadly elliptic, 3/4 lin. long. null
