Stout, summer annuals, to c. 100 cm, in bright green tufts with drooping panicles, stems either erect, or decumbent and rooting from lower nodes; branching extravaginal. Leaf-sheath bright purple, chartaceous, keeled above, glabrous. Ligule 0; ligular area often with scattered to more dense short hairs especially towards centre. Leaf-blade 10-35 cm × 6-11 mm, flat, linear, glabrous apart from a few occasional tubercle-based hairs on margins near ligular area, abaxially with distinct whitish midrib; margins whitish, ± thickened, obviously prickle-toothed, long-tapering to fine-acuminate tip. Culm (15)-50-80 cm, stout, internodes glabrous. Panicle (8)-12-20 cm, soft and drooping, narrow-pyramidal, with numerous flexuose racemes densely covered by spikelets for much of their length, florets usually awned; rachis 3-angled, finely scabrid. Racemes (2)-4-6.5 cm, spreading, clustered closely, especially above, often more distant below, bearing spikelets in clusters along rachis; pedicels scabrid, < 1 mm. Spikelets light green, sometimes purple-suffused, ovate-elliptic. Glumes quite unequal, submembranous, scabrid-pubescent, with stiff spinules on nerves, acute to acuminate, cuspidate or shortly awned; lower 1.3-1.8 mm, 3-5-nerved, broadly ovate, enwrapping base of spikelet, upper 3-4 mm, ovate-elliptic, 5-nerved. Lower floret: lemma similar to upper glume in size, texture and scabridity, 7-nerved, usually awned, awn 2.5-15 mm; palea ≈ lemma, elliptic, acute. Upper floret: lemma 2.5-3.5 mm, faintly 5-nerved, glabrous, shining, ovate-elliptic, thinly crustaceous, tapering to an almost membranous, faintly scabrid cusp; palea ≈ lemma; anthers 0.5-1 mm; caryopsis c. 1.5 × 1 mm, orbicular-oblong.