Loosely tufted annual; culms 30–100 cm. high, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades flat, up to 20 cm. long, 5 mm. wide. Panicle ovate, 7–30 cm. long, very loose and open, the spikelets trembling on long fine pedicels, sometimes bearded in the axils. Spikelets 10–60-flowered, linear, 5–25 mm. long, 1.5–2 mm. wide, the lemmas closely imbricate and covering the rhachilla, purplish, breaking up from the base, the rhachilla persistent; glumes unequal, subacute, the lower narrowly ovate and 0.8–1.2 mm. long, the upper ovate and 1.2–1.5 mm. long; lemmas broadly ovate, 1.5–1.7 mm. long, obtuse (ovate and subacute in side view); palea scabrid on the keels, persistent; anthers 2, 0.3–0.5 mm. long. Caryopsis subglobose to broadly ovoid, 0.4–0.6 mm. long. Fig. 62/5, p. 196.