Tufted annual with wiry culms 15-30 cm high. Leaf-blades flat or folded. 4-10 cm long and up to 2 mm wide. Panicle linear, up to 10 cm long, few-flowered. Spikelets green, tinged with brown; glumes linear, membranous, the lower (11-) 13-22 mm long, the upper (10)12-20 mm long, both finely attenuate; lemma, cylindrical, about 4 mm long, scabrid above, articulated at the apex; callus about 2 mm long, conical, pungent; column (0.8-)2-4.5 cm long, the base as wide as the summit of the lemma, straight for a short distance, thereafter strongly twisted; awn-branches subequal, 2.5-4.5 cm long.