Tufted annual; sulms up to 40 cm high (110 cm in exceptional specimens), erect. Leaf-blades 4-15(30) cm long, 26 mm wide, the blades and sheaths ± hirsute with tubercle-based hairs. Inflorescence composed of 3-6(17) racemes, these subdigitate or arranged along an axis 1-3(5) cm long; racemes 4-14 cm long, the spikelets ternate (at least in the middle of the raceme) on a narrowly winged rhachis with triquetrous midrib; pedicels narrowly winged, scabrid, slightly dilated at the tip with a crown of stiff hairs exceeding the tip and sometimes up to 1 mm long. Spikelets obtuse, oblong, elliptic or narrowly obovate, 1.1-1.4(-1.6) mm long; lower glume 0; upper glume 0 or very short to about one-third the length of the spikelet and 3-nerved, covered all over with short clavate hairs or rarely glabrous; lower lemma as long as the spikelet, (3-)5-nerved, all interspaces with a sparse to very dense covering of clavate hairs; fruit ellipsoid, apiculate, chestnut brown to black (very rarely pallid) at maturity.

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

Type: India, Heyne (B).

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Nepal, India, Burma and Sri Lanka; a single record for Oman.

This is a relatively uniform species except for the upper glume. This may be absent (var. denudate) or, when present, varying from a minute glabrous scale to clavate-hairy and up to (sometimes exceeding) one-third the length of the spikelet. The indumentum of the spikelet varies from dense to sparse (var. glabrescens), but the spikelet is very rarely completely glabrous.