Annual; culms 25-150 cm high, erect. Leaf-blades 7-35 cm long, 5-12 mm wide; ligule absent; sheaths smooth and glabrous. Inflorescence linear to narrowly ovate, 6-25 cm long, the racemes irregularly 2-rowed, the longest 2-5 cm long, usually simple. Spikelets ovate-elliptic, 3.8-6.5 mm long, hispid; lower lemma acuminate or with an awn up to 2.5 cm long; upper lemma 3.5-5 mm long, including the short herbaceous tip.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: August.

Type locality: ? Italy.

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Southeast Asia; introduced to much of Russia and parts of southern Europe.

Echinochloa oryzoides is a rice mimic and can be a serious weed in rice fields. In parts of southern Russia the infection has been so bad that the cultivation of rice has had to be abandoned whereupon the weed has taken over the rice fields.