Annual, up to over 1 ft. high, loosely tufted. Culms suberect or geniculately ascending from a decumbent base, usually very slender, terete, more or less pubescent to almost glabrous, 4-many-noded, branched below or almost all along. Leaf-sheaths rather tight, the lowest often slipping off the culm, terete, strongly striate, softly hairy to subhirsute or glabrous with the exception of the pubescent outer margin and the villosulous nodes; ligules reduced to a dense fringe of short hairs; blades lanceolate to linear-lanceolate from a rounded base, tapering to a very acute point, 1 1/2–3 in. by 2 1/2–6 lin., flat, rather firm and somewhat succulent, pale or yellowish-green, loosely and softly hairy to almost glabrous, or subhirsute with minutely tubercle-based hairs, margins markedly cartilaginous and closely crisped, spinulously ciliolate, nerves very fine and close, the primary lateral (3–4) differentiated and prominent below only, midrib very slender. Panicle secund or subsecund, narrow or semi-ovate in outline, 2 1/2–3 1/2 in. long, of 7–10 secund oblique and often arching somewhat loose racemes; common axis very slender, terete and adaxillarily channelled or upwards slightly flattened, pubescent. Racemes sessile or subsessile, mostly compound downwards with short 4–2-spiculate secund secondary racemes, the lowest 1–2 1/2 or 3 in. long, the following gradually shorter; rhachis finely filiform, 1/8 lin. wide, subtriquetrous, scabrid and more or less ciliate or pubescent with short white hairs, hardly wavy at all; pedicels paired or solitary upwards, the paired unequal, the longer up to over 1/2 lin. long, filiform, with a small beard of white hairs near the tips. Spikelets or pairs or clusters of spikelets about 1 lin. apart, those of a pair or cluster imbricate, otherwise hardly contiguous, slightly nodding, obovoid, rather convex on the back, 3/4– 4/5 lin. long, the obtuse or subacute apex concealed in a white coma. Glumes very unequal; the lower ovate, subacute or acute, thinly membranous, 3-nerved, finely pubescent; upper broad elliptic-oblong, shortly acute, equalling the spikelet, membranous, finely 5-neryed, pubescent with a transverse fringe of white hairs below the apex, the hairs up to over 1/2 lin. long, forming a coma. Lower floret neuter: valve similar to the upper glume and of equal length, but concave on the back along the middle with the apex often slightly incurved; valvule narrowly oblong, delicate, the narrow keels giving out upwards. Upper floret hermaphrodite, elliptic-oblong, subacute, almost as long as the lower; valve and valvule thinly crustaceous, very finely granular. Anthers 3/8 lin. long.
