Robust annual; culms 30-150 cm high, erect. leaf-blades often broad, 5-30 cm long, 3-20 mm wide; ligule absent; sheaths glabrous. Inflorescence lanceolate, 6-20 cm long, the racemes several-rowed with crowded spikelets, 1-3 cm long, simple, closely spaced and overlapping. Spikelets broadly elliptic to rotund, 2.5-3.5 mm long, plump and sometimes gaping, ± tardily deciduous, mostly yellowish or pallid, pubescent to hispid; lower lemma acute; upper lemma 2-3 mm long.