Annual, greyish green tufts, 10-100 cm. Leaf-sheath villous with long, soft hairs; upper sheaths sometimes glabrous. Ligule 0.5-1.5 mm, denticulate, abaxially short-hairy. Leaf-blade (1.5)-3-18 cm × (1)-1.5-5 mm, flaccid, velvety with soft, short hairs; tip subacute. Culm erect or geniculate at base, internodes minutely pubescent. Panicle (1.5)-2.5-15 cm, erect, ± contracted; branches pubescent, bearing 1-few spikelets; sometimes panicle reduced to a single spikelet. Spikelets 1.5-3 cm, 4-12-(16)-flowered, ovate to oblong, greyish green or purplish. Glumes subequal, acute, membranous, ± closely pubescent; lower 4.5-7.5 mm, 3-5-nerved, ovate or oblong-lanceolate, upper 5.5-8.5 mm, 5-7-nerved, elliptic. Lemma 6.5-10.5 mm, 7-nerved, rounded, papery with prominent nerves, obovate to elliptic, shortly pubescent throughout or ± glabrous below, or rarely entirely glabrous or very rarely scabrid; margins hyaline, flat, overlapping, usually narrow; awn 3-8 mm. Palea slightly < lemma, keels with sparse short stiff hairs sometimes interspersed with minute hairs. Callus glabrous. Rachilla minutely pubescent. Anthers 0.5-1.5-(2.5) mm. Caryopsis 4.5-6.5 × 1.5-2 mm.