Annual, tufted, 3–4 in. high. Culms slender, erect, with a subbasal node and sometimes another 1/2 in. higher up, smooth and glabrous. Leaf-sheaths herbaceous, or pale and submembranous at the base, somewhat compressed upwards, quite glabrous and smooth, striate; ligule a very narrow glabrous membranous rim; blades linear from an almost equally wide base, tapering to a slender point, 1–1 3/4 in. by 1–1 1/2 lin., flat, green, soft, quite glabrous and smooth, midrib and primary lateral nerves very fine. False spike cylindric, 1/3– 3/4 in. by 1 3/4–2 1/2 lin., compact, quite glabrous; pedicels up to 1/2 lin. long with minutely discoid tips. Spikelets symmetrical or nearly so, not gaping, ovoid, somewhat plump, subacute to obtuse, 1 lin. by slightly over 1/2 lin., pale olive-green, tinged with lurid purple upwards, quite glabrous and smooth. Lower glume broad-elliptic, obtuse, two-thirds the length of the spikelet, 5-nerved; upper broadly elliptic-oblong, subacute, 7–9-nerved. Lower floret barren: valve very like the upper glume and of the same length, but quite obtuse; valvule very much reduced, oblong, acute, with broad flaps. Upper floret hermaphrodite, oblong-elliptic, subacute, slightly over 1/2 lin. by 1/4 lin., pale, smooth: valve and valvule thinly papery, nervation quite obscure.
