Annual, up to 1/2 ft. high. Culms slender, erect or ascending, 6- or more-noded, simple or tufted at the base, flowering from the upper 2 or 3 nodes, glabrous, compressed, smooth, lower internodes short to very short, upper elongated and more or less exserted. Leaf-sheaths loose, keeled, more or less hirsute (at least upwards) with tubercle-based hairs, lower often purple; ligules very short, truncate, fimbriate; blades linear from a slightly rounded base, acutely acuminate, 3/4–1 1/4 in. long, up to 1 1/2 lin. wide, green hirsute, midrib slender, lateral primary nerves 2–3 on each side, very fine; inflorescence reduced to 2 or 3 distant raceme-pairs, borne on filiform rays, 1–2 in. long, subtending leaves with more or less spatheaceous sheaths and small blades or the uppermost spatheoloid. Spatheoles narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, 1 1/4–1 3/4 in. long, sometimes with a rudimentary blade, glabrous, suffused with purple, at length slightly inrolled; peduncles finely filiform, 3/4–1 1/4 in. long, glabrous. Racemes subcontiguous, laterally exserted from and at a right angle to the spatheole, at length epinastically reflexed, about 3/4 in. long, 4–7-awned per pair, greenish, glabrous except for the joints and pedicels, the lower usually subsessile, the upper with a slender short more or less hairy base; joints slender filiform, with a transparent median line, shortly and densely ciliate, 1 1/2 lin. long, tips truncate; pedicels very similar but slightly shorter. Homogamous pair of neuter spikelets 1 at the base of the lower raceme only. Fertile spikelets oblong to oblanceolate-oblong, including the callus 2 1/2–3 lin. long, greenish or tinged with purple; callus subobtuse, densely bearded, beard up to 1 lin. long. Glumes subequal; lower 2-denticulate, thinly herbaceous, chartaceous, somewhat rounded on the back, glabrous and very smooth, usually with a shallow median groove and a large pit on each side of it at the upper third quarter, keels finely scaberulous, nerves 2–3 on each side of the groove; upper glume thinner, oval-oblong, finely 3-nerved, minutely notched, with a fine bristle up to 3 lin. long from the notch. Lower floret reduced to a linear-oblong 2-nerved glabrous hyaline valve. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve 2-fid to one-third, lobes linear-lanceolate, glabrous, awn robust, about 1 1/2 in. long, bent at and twisted below the middle, column dark brown, scabrid, bristle pale; valvule 0. Grain oblong, dorsally subcompressed, 1 1/4 lin. long; embryo half as long. Pedicelled spikelets lanceolate, neuter, 3 1/2–4 lin. long, greenish, with or without pits, often more or less involute from the sides; lower glume minutely 2-dentate, with a bristle 3–4 lin. long from the notch, upper shorter, hyaline, 3-nerved; valves if present linear, often very small.
