Annual, up to 50 cm. high, delicate. Culms erect, ascending, usually branched from the lower nodes, glabrous, smooth, 3-4-noded; nodes glabrous and smooth. Leaf-sheaths rather lax, keeled; the lower ones with some scattered long, delicate hairs; the upper ones glabrous and smooth. Ligule densely short-ciliolate; auricles ciliolate, often with a few long hairs; collar glabrous. Leaf-laminae up to 16 x 0·17 cm., densely ribbed, with marginal nerves and midrib more prominent, shortly pubescent on the nerves above, glabrous and smooth beneath. Panicle up to 20 cm. long, effuse; axis terete and glabrous, smooth in the lower part, subangular, scabrid in the upper; branches 1-2 at the nodes, subangular, slightly scabrid, divaricate, naked in the lower part, bearing 1-3 spikelets, with dark, shortly pubescent glandular patches in the axils. Spikelets delicate, greenish or purplish-brown, the lateral ones divaricate, on short pedicels (up to 1·5 mm. long). Glumes broad, unequal, 2-fid at the apex, 1-nerved, keeled; the inferior 6-7·5 mm. long, scabrid on the keel, otherwise glabrous and smooth, rarely slightly minutely pubescent towards the apex, with obtuse lobes at the apex with a very short awn (up to 0·8 mm. long) from a shallow sinus, exceeding the lobes; the superior 8·5-10 mm. long, nearly smooth on the keel, with acute lobes at the apex and with a very short awn (up to 0·5 mm. long) from a deep sinus, usually not exceeding the lobes. Lemma c. 8 mm. long, keeled, glabrous and smooth, sometimes mottled with purple, deeply grooved ventrally, with enrolled margins; callus c. 1 mm. long, subobtuse, densely pubescent; column absent; awns subequal, 1-1·5 cm. long, slightly dilated towards the base, scabrid; articulation absent.