Annual; culms 20-100 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades 2-30 cm long, 2-4 mm wide. Inflorescence 4-20 cm long; racemes 2-10 cm long, the rhachis puberulous, triquetrous, bearing paired spikelets; pedicels commonly glabrous, those of a pair often fused below. Spikelets lanceolate, (2.5)3.4 mm long, thinly pubescent; lower glume absent; upper glume acute to acuminate; lower -floret represented only by a lemma; upper lemma with a mucro 0.3-0.5 mm long.