Annual; culms 10-60 cm high, loosely tufted or solitary, erect or geniculately ascending, slender. Leaf-blades 5-20 cm long, 3-8 mm wide, flat, minutely rough on the margins; ligule 2-5 mm long. Panicle 3-10 cm long, loose, nodding, bearing up to 12 spikelets on capillary pedicels. Spikelets 7-20-flowered, ovate to oblong, plump, 14-25 mm long and 8-15 mm wide, glabrous or minutely hairy, pale green, silvery or suffused with reddish-brown or purple; lemma 6-8 mm long, very broad, rounded on the back, obtuse.