Annual. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, 1 1/2–4 (rarely 6) ft. high, more or less slender, terete or grooved on the side facing a branch, branched from most nodes and especially the upper with the solitary or fascicled branches flowering, up to 10-noded, scaberulous towards the inflorescence, the remainder glabrous and smooth. Leaf-sheaths mostly shorter than the internodes, loose, striate, loosely pilose upwards or all over, ciliate on the margins or quite glabrous and smooth; ligule reduced to a densely ciliate rim; blade linear or lanceolate-linear, narrowed towards the sheath, tapering to a fine point, up to 9 in. long, 2–6 lin. wide, flat, firm or flaccid, green, loosely pilose, the hairs sometimes tubercle-based or glabrous, finely scaberulous. False spike dense, cylindric, slender, 1 1/2–6 in. long, 2–3 lin. wide (exclusive of the bristles), purplish; rhachis angular, glabrous, finely scaberulous on the angles or smooth, closely beset with the scars of the deciduous involucres; involucres sessile, at length horizontally spreading or slightly deflexed; bristles up to 22 to each involucre, very slender, the inner or all densely plumose around the spikelet with closely interwoven crinkled silky hairs, scaberulous above, or the outer bristles scaberulous, one stouter than the rest and up to 3 1/2 to 5 (very rarely 6) lin. long, the remainder varying in length and up to 2 1/2 lin. long. Spikelets solitary, sessile within the involucre, lanceolate-oblong or oblong, 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long, pale brown. Lower glume suppressed or very minute, hyaline and nerveless, rarely up to 1/3 lin. long; upper when flattened oblong or ovate-oblong, as long as the spikelet, minutely 3-lobed with the lateral lobes obtuse and shorter than the middle acute lobe, or abruptly acute from a rounded tip, thinly membranous, finely 3–5-nerved, minutely puberulous above the middle and ciliolate at the apex. Lower floret ♂ or barren: valve oblong, 1–1 1/4 lin. long, minutely 3-lobed with the lobes obtuse or acute, finely 4–5-nerved, otherwise similar to the upper glume; valvule linear, subequal to the valve or much reduced or suppressed. Upper floret hermaphrodite, ovate, obtuse: valve when flattened broadly ovate-elliptic, 3/4–1 lin. long, truncate and ciliolate at the apex, chartaceous, smooth and shining, very obscurely 5-nerved; valvule somewhat similar to the valve. Lodicules 0. Anthers 1/2– 3/4 lin. long, with glabrous tips. Styles free.
