Annual, up to 3 ft. high. Culms erect or geniculate-ascending, terete, rather slender, simple, about 3-noded, glabrous and smooth. Leaf-sheaths terete, somewhat loose, striate, ciliate along the outer margin, otherwise glabrous, shorter than the long internodes; ligules rounded, membranous, 1/2 lin. long, ciliate; blades linear from an attenuated base, long-tapering to a slender point, up to over 1 1/2 ft. by 3–5 lin., flat, flexuous or flaccid, glabrous or very sparsely hairy and ciliate upwards, margins scabrid, midrib slender or in the longest leaves stouter and more prominent downwards, primary lateral nerves 4–5 on each side, fine. Panicles contracted or slightly open, loose, narrow, over 1 ft. long, slightly nodding or erect, with their base at length shortly exserted from the uppermost sheath, glabrous, divided to the third or fourth degree, all the divisions filiform to subcapillary, angular and scabrid or the primary smooth at the base; primary axis slender, subterete and grooved or very angular and smooth below; primary branches scattered, often widely distant or the lowest whorled, up to almost 1 ft. long, very loosely divided from 1/2–1 1/2 in. above the base; branchlets very long and remotely divided from high above the base, the penultimate divisions representing very loose usually 2-spiculate racemes; pedicels hardly thickened upwards, with truncate tips, the lateral 3–4 lin., the terminal up to 6 lin. long. Spikelets broad- or elliptic-oblong, sub-subulate-acuminate, hardly turgid, 3 lin. long, glabrous, green or tinged with dull purple. Glumes falling with the spikelet, membranous, finely and prominently nerved; lower ovate-oblong mucronate-acuminate, equalling three-quarters of the lower floret, 7- or sub-7-nerved; upper broad-oblong, subsubulate-acuminate, the tip laterally compressed, broadly rounded on the back, 9-nerved, nerves more prominent upwards. Lower floret barren: valve similar to the upper glume but less acuminate, sub-9-nerved, the innermost side-nerves evanescent below the upper third; valvule slightly shorter, oblong, truncate or subacute; stamens rudimentary or 0. Upper floret hermaphrodite, broad-elliptic-oblong, obtuse, 2 lin. long, brown, smooth and shining.
