Plants annual, forming loose tufts or mats. Flowering stems 15–90 cm long, spreading or ascending from spreading bases, rooting at the lowermost nodes. Leaf sheaths hairy on the surface and margins, the ligule 1.0–2.2 mm long. Leaf blades 2–16 cm long, 3–9 mm wide, glabrous or sparsely hairy on the upper surface near the base. Inflorescences of 3–10 spikelike racemes, these 4–15 cm long, arranged digitately at the tip of the main inflorescence axis or less commonly in 2 or 3 whorls on a panicle with a short main axis, the spikelets with stalks 0.5–3.0 mm long, grouped in 2 rows on 1 side of the axis of the spikelike raceme, this relatively broadly winged, the wings as wide as or wider than the midrib of the axis. Spikelets 2.8–3.6 mm long, elliptic in outline. Upper glume 1.4–2.5 mm long, lanceolate to elliptic, bluntly to sharply pointed at the tip, usually minutely hairy. Sterile floret with the lemma 2.5–3.5 mm long, elliptic, sharply pointed at the tip, the lateral nerves of the lemma glabrous (there may be minute hairs or a few longer hairs between the nerves, especially near the margins). Fertile floret with the lemma 2.5–3.5 mm long, elliptic, sharply pointed at the tip, grayish brown at maturity. Anthers 0.5–1.1 mm long, yellow. 2n=54. August–October.

Introduced, scattered nearly throughout the state, but apparently still absent from northwesternmost Missouri (native of Europe, Africa; introduced nearly worldwide, mostly in tropical and warm‑temperate regions). Margins of streams and rivers; also crop fields, fallow fields, pastures, lawns, roadsides, railroads, and open, disturbed areas.

Steyermark (1963) and many earlier authors included this taxon as a variety of the closely related D. sanguinalis, but Ebinger (1962), Gould (1963), and Webster (1987) have presented morphological and cytological evidence that it should be treated as a distinct species. Gould (1963) reported a sterile hybrid between the two from Texas, and such plants may occur rarely in Missouri where the two parents grow together, although none has been reported to date. Digitaria ciliaris has spread considerably in Missouri from the time of Steyermark’s (1963) treatment, in which it was reported from only three counties (also, a number of the earlier collections originally were misdetermined as D. sanguinalis).