Annual; culms 20-60 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, seldom stoloniferous. Leaf-blades 3-25 cm long, 2-7 mm wide. Inflorescence composed of (2-) 3-6(-9) subdigitate racemes; racemes 3-14 cm long, the spikelets ternate on a ribbon-like winged rhachis with low rounded midrib; pedicels terete to ± flattened and winged, scabrid, with discoid or cupuliform tip. Spikelets elliptic, 1.2-2 mm long; lower glume an obscure hyaline rim; upper glume four-fifths to almost as long as the spikelet, 3(-5)-nerved, with, short appressed verrucose hairs between the nerves; lower lemma as long as the spikelet, 5-7-nerved, pubescent (often obscurely so) with verrucose hairs; fruit ellipsoid, dark brown to almost black.