Trailing annual; culms 20-40 cm long, very slender. Leaf-blades narrowly lanceolate, 2-7 cm long, 2-5 mm wide. Inflorescence digitate with 2-4 racemes; racemes 3-9 cm long, the spikelets binate and loosely overlapping by about half their length on a narrowly winged triquetrous rhachis with almost smooth edges. Spikelets narrowly lanceolate, 2.5-3 mm long; lower glume an inconspicuous ovate scale up to 0.3 mm long; upper glume one-third to two-thirds as long as the spikelet, 3-nerved; lower lemma as long as the spikelet, 5(-7)-nerved, with a wide central interspace and the lateral nerves so close together that the lemma is apparently 3-nerved, appressed or silky pubescent, very rarely with a ciliate fringe, never with bristles; fruit narrowly lanceolate, yellowish or pale brown.