Tufted annual or short-lived perennial; culms 10-45cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, often clothed at the base with the scarious remains of old leaf-sheaths. Leaf-blades flat or folded, 3-10cm long, 2-5mm wide, flaccid, abruptly tapered to a blunt tip, contracted at the base, smooth or scabrid on the margins and both surfaces; ligule erose, 2.5-6mm long. Panicle oblong or pyra¬midal, 6-15cm long; branches usually in pairs, ascending, spreading or deflexed, capillary, scaberulous. Spikelets 3-5-flowered, oblong, 4-6mm long, often suffused with purple; glumes unequal, the lower lanceolate to elliptic, 1.5-2.5mm long, (1-)3-nerved, the upper obovate-elliptic, 2.5-3mm long, 3-nerved, denticulate on the margins; lemma elliptic in side-view, 2.7- 3mm long, blunt, ciliate on the keel, glabrous or ciliate on the marginal nerves, without any wool at the base; palea shorter than the lemma, the keels ciliate below, scabrid above; anthers 05-0.8mm long.