Delicate tufted annual; culms 6-50 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades flat, up to 9 cm long and 4 mm wide. Panicle elliptic or pyramidal (but in var. insularis C.E. Hubbard in Kew Bull. 1939: 654. 1939, which has not yet been found in Pakistan, the panicle is linear and slender), 2-14 cm long, open, hairy in the axils or not, the branches spreading and bearing oblong yellowish glands but not sticky. Spikelets 4-8-flowered, oblong-ovate, 1.5-2.5 mm long, breaking up from the apex, the rhachilla fragile; glumes ovate to narrowly ovate, subequal, 0.5-1 mm long, acute; lemmas ovate-oblong, 0.7-1 mm long, smooth or scaberulous, broadly obtuse; palea-keels ciliate with hairs 0.1-0.3 mm long, normally shorter than the width of the adjacent floret; anthers 3, 0.2 mm long. Caryopsis ellipsoid, 0.5 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: March-September.

Type: India (LINN).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Punjab & Kashmir); throughout the tropics.

Eragrostis tenella is eaten by cattle both fresh and dry. The grain is said to be very nutritious.