Annual. Culms up to 9 ft. high, sparingly branched from the base or simple (?), sometimes rooting from the lowest nodes, robust, glabrous. Leaf-sheaths terete, the lowest at length loose, otherwise tight, more or less hirsute from tubercles or glabrous, the lower prominently striate, glabrous at the nodes; ligules firmly scarious, rounded, up to over 1 1/2 lin. long, brown; blades linear, tapering to a long fine point, very gradually narrowed towards the base and there narrower than the mouth of the sheath, 1/2–3 ft. long and up to 4 lin. wide, flat, appressedly pubescent to hirsute with the hairs springing from tubercles, midrib stout downwards, rounded on the back, whitish, lateral nerves 4–6 on each side, fine, margins scabrid to spinulously ciliate. Panicle linear-oblong to oblong, up to 10 in. long and 1–1 1/2 in. wide, rather dense; rhachis more or less grooved and scabrid to spinulously ciliate on the angles above or smooth below; branches usually 2-nate, divided from the base, the longest up to 3 in. long, secondary branches often very few, representing slender narrow racemes up to 2 in. long, all hairy and often silky-villous at the thickened base; pedicels filiform with thickened tips, 2–1 lin. long, hairy, hairs up to 1 lin. long. Spikelets oblong, not quite 2 1/2 lin. long, straw-coloured to chestnut-brown when young, at length dark, slightly glossy, densely greyish-pubescent, at length glabrescent on the back. Glumes thinly coriaceous, lower minutely truncate, finely 7-nerved, callus obscure, very shortly bearded; upper glume very similar. Valve of lower floret oblong, over 1/2 lin. long, hyaline, ciliolate, 2-nerved, of upper oblong, shortly 2-lobed, over 1 lin. long, ciliolate, finely 3-nerved below; awn 1–1 1/4 in. long, twisted up to the middle, the twisted part often flexuous or curved; valvule shorter than the lodicules, ciliolate. Lodicules ciliolate. Anthers 1 1/2 lin. long. Grain obovate-oblong, truncate, 1 lin. long, brown; embryo-mark obscure, about half the length of the grain.
