Annual or loosely tufted perennial; culms 30-100 cm high, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades flat or folded, 5-30cm long, 2-10mm wide. Panicle ovate, 5-20cm long, fluffy, silvery pink or purple; pedicels usually pilose at the tip. Spikelets ovate, 2.5-8.5 mm long, villous with hairs extending 1-4mm beyond the tip; lower glume narrowly oblong, 0.3-0.5mm long, separated from the upper by an internode 0.1-1.2mm long; upper glume conspicuously gibbous, chartaceous, tapering to a glabrous membranous beak a quarter to half its length, emarginate, mucronate or with an inconspicuous awn up to 7 mm long; lower floret male or barren, its lemma narrower and less gibous than the upper glume, its palea ciliate on the keels.