Annual; crams 15-60 cm high, often decumbent at the base and rooting from the lower nodes. Leaf-blades 2-16 cm long, 2-11 mm wide, rough; ligule 2-8 mm long. Panicle narrowly ovate, oblong or cylindrical, usually lobed, 3-15 cm long, 05-5 cm wide, dense but hardly bristly, pale green or yellowish. Spikelets 1.8-2.4 mm long; glumes slightly notched at the apex, rough with minute points especially in the lower part, minutely hairy on the margins, with a fine straight awn 0.6-3 mm long; lemma about half the length of the glumes, smooth, awnless or with an awn up to 2 mm long.