Annual, usually with decumbent stems rooting at the nodes; culms 15-60 cm high. Leaf-blades narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, 2-7 cm long, 3-15 mm wide. Inflorescence of 5-15 racemes on an axis 1-8 cm long; racemes 14 cm long, bearing paired spikelets crowded on a triquetrous rhachis with hirsute pedicels. Spikelets narrowly ovate to broadly elliptic, 1.5-2.2 mm long, glabrous, acute, without a stipe; lower glume one eighth to a quarter the length of the spikelet, hyaline, clasping, truncate (sometimes a little longer and broadly ovate); upper lemma rugose, subacute, mucronulate.

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

Type: Jamaica, Browne (LINN).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab & N.W.F.P.); tropical Asia; introduced throughout the tropics.

A good fodder grass whose grain has been used as food in times of famine.