Annual; culms erect or geniculately ascending, up to 65 cm high. Leaf-blades up to 16 cm long, 2-6.5 mm wide; sheaths pubescent. Panicle 6-16 cm long, rather narrow with short erect branches usually shorter than the spikelets or the lowermost branches longer, rather stout. Spikelets narrowly elliptic, 6-16 flowered, 25-40 mm long excluding the awns, the lemmas overlapping and concealing the internodes; glumes glabrous or hairy, the lower lanceolate, 7-9 mm long, 3(-5)-nerved, the upper narrowly ovate, 9-11 mm long, 5(-9)-nerved; lemmas narrowly elliptic in side view, the lower 11-14 mm long, herbaceous with broad hyaline margins not widened above the middle into an obtuse angle, 7-9-nerved, glabrous or pubescent, 2-toothed at the tip with acuminate teeth 1-2.5 mm long; awn subapical, somewhat flattened especially at the base, 15-25 mm long, erect at first, becoming reflexed and slightly twisted at maturity; palea shorter than the lemma, ciliolate on the keels; anthers 1.5-2.5 mm long.