Annual or short-lived perennial; culms 10-40 cm high, ascending. Leaf-blades 2-20 cm long, 2-5 mm wide. Panicle 2-6 cm long; involucre elongate, 6-16 mm long; inner bristles greatly exceeding the spikelets, one of them longer and stouter than the rest, flattened at the base, connate for 1-2.5 mm above the basal disc to form a cup, almost glabrous to sparsely ciliate below, grooved on the face or not, filiform above, flexuous, often wavy, antrorsely scaberulous; outer bristles filiform. Spikelets 1-3 per burr, 3-5 mm long.