Annual; culms 20-100 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades 2-30 cm long, 2-4 mm wide. Inflorescence 4-20 cm long; racemes 2-10 cm long, the rhachis puberulous, triquetrous, bearing paired spikelets; pedicels commonly glabrous, those of a pair often fused below. Spikelets lanceolate, (2.5)3.4 mm long, thinly pubescent; lower glume absent; upper glume acute to acuminate; lower -floret represented only by a lemma; upper lemma with a mucro 0.3-0.5 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: May and again in August-October.

Type: India, Koenig (LD).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind); tropical Africa; throughout Southeast Asia; introduced in tropical America.

Although widely distributed this species is nowhere very common. It favours damp places, ditches and the edges of paddy fields. It is quick growing and succulent, and in Australia it affords good fodder.