Tufted annual; culms 30-100 cm high, erect or ascending, slender to stout. Leaf-blades up to 30 cm long, 4-10 mm wide, glabrous, rough; ligules up to 6 mm long. Panicle subsecund, up to 22 cm long and 8 cm wide, loose with scabrid branches. Spikelets 20-30 mm long, 2-3-flowered, the rhachilla articulated above the glumes but not between the florets; glumes lanceolate, finely acute; lemmas 16-21 mm long, densely bearded around the callus with hairs up to 5 mm long, densely hairy with long stiff hairs and finally dark brown in the lower two-thirds, scaberulous all over, narrowed upwards and acuminately 2-toothed at the apex; awn 3-4 cm long, geniculate, the column dark brown to blackish, asperulous.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: April-May.

Type: France, Durieau (K, P,?BORD, fide Baum 1977).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Mediterranean region and the Middle East eastwards to Northwest India.

Avena sterilis subsp. ludoviciana is a common weed of cultivation in Pakistan. It differs from subsp. sterilis, which does not occur locally, only by its smaller (not more than 30 mm long) spikelets. 1000-2000 m.