Annual, tufted 2–4 ft. high. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, terete, stout or slender, 4–5-noded, simple or sparingly branched, more or less softly hirsute below the nodes, the uppermost internode usually quite glabrous. Leaf-sheaths terete, somewhat loose or the upper tight, closely striate, spreadingly hirsute with conspicuously tubercle-based hairs, pubescent or loosely bearded at the nodes, longer or slightly shorter than the internodes; ligule a narrow ciliate rim; blades linear from an equally wide or slightly contracted and rounded base long-tapering to a slender point, 1/2 to over 1 ft. by 3–10 lin., flat, flexuous, usually glabrous except for the often ciliate lower margins and hispidulous dorsal midrib, rarely sparsely hairy all over, hairs long and fine, midrib somewhat stout and prominent below in large leaves, primary lateral nerves 3–6 on each side, very slender. Panicles contracted and rather dense or open, narrowly oblong, nodding, often with their base permanently enclosed in the uppermost sheath or only shortly exserted, up to 1 ft. long, in subspontaneous specimens usually scantier, looser and at length more open, divided up to the fourth or in cultivated specimens the fifth degree, all the divisions filiform, angular and scabrid; primary axis slender or somewhat stout below, subterete, striate or grooved and smooth towards the base; primary branches more or less approximate below, more distant upwards, up to two-thirds or three-quarters the length of the panicle, often much divided from low down; branchlets relatively long, the lower divided again in the same manner or like the remainder from much higher up with spikelets in small loose racemes of 2 (rarely 3) towards the summit; pedicels hardly thickened upwards, with truncate tips, the lateral from less than 1 to 3 lin. long, terminal somewhat (rarely much) exceeding the lower. Spikelets ovate-oblong to ovate-lanceolate, apiculate-acuminate, turgid, 2 1/4–2 1/2 lin. long, glabrous, green or brownish-green. Glumes persistent, unequal, strongly and prominently nerved; lower broad-ovate, acute, from half to two-thirds the length of the lower floret, 5-nerved; upper corresponding in size and outline to the spikelet, broadly rounded on the back, 11-nerved, tip contracted, apiculate to shortly rostrate. Lower floret barren: valve very like the lower glume; valvule ovate to ovate-oblong, truncate or emarginate, up to about one-third the length of the valve. Upper floret hermaphrodite, elliptic-oblong in outline, subacute, very convex on the back, up to over 1 1/2 lin. by 1 lin., variously coloured (white, yellow, red, brown or black), very smooth and polished; valve and valvule crustaceous. Grain white.
