Annual; culms erect or geniculately ascending, up to 90 cm high. Leaf-blades up to 20 cm long, 1.5-5.5 mm wide; sheaths pubescent. Panicle 6-20 cm long, very lax and spreading, the branches and pedicels very long, filiform and flexuous. Spikelets ovate to oblong-lanceolate, 7-15-flowered, 12-30(-35) mm long excluding the awns, the lemmas overlapping and concealing the internodes; glumes glabrous or hairy, the lower lanceolate, 4.5-6 mm long, 3-nerved, the upper ovate, 5-7.5 mm long, 7-nerved; lemmas oblanceolate in side view, the lower 7.5-10(-12) mm long, coriaceous with hyaline margins, faintly to strongly angled above the middle, 7-nerved, the nerves indistinct, glabrous or hairy, minutely 2-toothed at the tip, the teeth blunt, triangular; awn subapical, flattened especially at the base, 10-15 mm long on the upper lemmas, those on the lower much reduced, erect at first, becoming reflexed at maturity; palea shorter than to as long as the lemma, ciliolate on the keels; anthers 0.5-1.5 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: June-August.

Type: Japan, Thunberg (UPS).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Central Europe eastwards to Japan; introduced in the rest of Europe, North America and elsewhere.