Tufted annual; culms (10-)35-95 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, sometimes decumbent and rooting from the lower nodes. Leaf-blades flat, (3-) 15-35 cm long, (2-)3-6 mm wide, scabrid on both surfaces; ligule 4-6 mm long, truncate. Panicle broadly ovate to lanceolate, (5-)10-30 cm long, loose and open or ± contracted, green or suffused with purple; inflated tip of pedicel smooth or almost so. Spikelets 2.5-3.5(-4.5) mm long, breaking up at maturity above the persistent glumes; glumes acute, awnless, scabrid on the keel; lemma hairy, 2-3 mm long, acute, awned; awn 4-6 mm long, bent, twisted below and arising from near the base of the lemma; palea not more than a third the length of the lemma; anthers 1-1.5 mm long.