Annual to biennial, slender to rather stout tufts, (20)-40-100-(130) cm; branching intravaginal, leaf-blade rolled when young. Leaf-sheath glabrous, pink at base to light brown above, not becoming very fibrous; upper sheaths sometimes scabrid. Auricles usually present, to 1.6 mm. Ligule (0.6)-1-2.5 mm, truncate, glabrous. Leaf-blade (5.5)-8-30 cm × (0.7)-2.5-9-(11) mm, abaxially glabrous and shining, adaxially smooth or usually scaberulous; margins scaberulous, tapered to scabrid acute tip. Culm 10-60 cm, erect, or spreading or decumbent, often branched below, internodes smooth. Spikes (9.5)-15-35-(45) cm, erect or curved; rachis c. 1 mm wide, usually ± scabrid. Spikelets 14-25 mm, (4)-9-14-flowered, green or purplish, overlapping, or more than their own length apart. Upper glume usually « spikelet, 5-7-nerved, narrow-lanceolate or narrow-oblong, obtuse or acute, glabrous. Lemma 6-8 mm, 5-nerved, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, smooth or minutely scaberulous especially on hyaline margins, not turgid at maturity, apex obtuse or shortly bifid; awn (2)-4-10 mm, fine, straight, subapical. Palea ≈ lemma, keels scaberulous. Anthers 3-4.5 mm. Caryopsis 2-4 × 0.5-1.5 mm.