Annual, more or less tufted, 1 to over 2 ft. high. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, terete or subterete, slender to rather stout, branched from below, glabrous or more or less hirsute below the nodes, 3–4-noded, usually shortly or the uppermost sometimes long exserted. Leaf-sheaths loose or tight, striate, quite glabrous, rarely more or less hirsute with tubercle-based ultimately deciduous hairs; ligule reduced to a thinly membranous ciliate rim; blades linear from a shortly rounded or equally wide base, long-tapering to a slender point, 3–8 in. by 2–5 lin., flat, pale or yellowish-green, quite glabrous and smooth except at the scaberulous margins, rarely more or less hirsute like the sheaths or rigidly ciliate towards the base, finely and closely nerved, primary lateral nerves 4–6 on each side. Panicle broadly obovate or turbinate in outline, very loose, open, 3–6 in. long and ultimately often almost twice as wide, divided to the third or fourth degree, slender, angular, striate or sulcate, smooth or more or less scaberulous; primary branches solitary, rather distant and stiff, subfiliform, oblique or the lower at length almost horizontal, up to 3 or 4 in. long, very loosely branched from 12–3 lin. above the base, scaberulous like the following divisions or smooth downwards; penultimate divisions rarely with more than 2 spikelets; pedicels finely filiform, very unequal, the lateral mostly longer to much longer than the spikelet, the terminal up to 6 lin. long, all with subcupular tips. Spikelets ovate to elliptic-oblong in outline, acute or subacuminate, hardly gaping except when ripening, 1 1/2 lin. by 3/4 lin., greenish to straw-coloured, glabrous. Glumes thinly membranous, very unequal; lower broad-ovate, acute to subacute, clasping, about half the length of the spikelet, 5- (rarely 7-) nerved, nerves usually anastomosing below the tip; upper corresponding in size and outline to the spikelet, 7–9- (more rarely 11-) nerved, nerves prominent upwards. Lower floret barren: valve very similar to the upper glume; valvule oblong, acute, slightly shorter, flaps narrow. Upper floret hermaphrodite, oblong, subacute, 1 1/4 lin. by slightly over 1/2 lin., pale olive-brown, very glossy and smooth: valve and valvule crustaceous; anthers 3/4 lin. long. Grain elliptic in outline, very obtuse, 3/4 lin. by over 3/8 lin., yellowish; scutellum more than half the length of the grain.
