Tufted annual; culms up to 30 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades flat or folded, up to 10 cm long, 1-4 mm wide, scaberulous above, smooth beneath. Spike oblong, 1.5-4 cm long. Spikelets 3-5-flowered, the upper florets ± reduced; glumes lanceolate, acute or acuminate, 6-12 (-20) mm long, awnless; lemma 10-15(-22) mm long, linear-lanceolate, glabrous, scabrid or hairy, often produced at the tip into a short awn up to 3 mm long; palea-keels produced into 2 short blunt teeth with a shallow sinus between them.

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

Type: Egypt, Sprengel.

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); Southwest and Central Asia.

Two varieties of Eremopyrum bonaepartis are commonly recognised: var. bonaepartis has glabrous lemmas; var. sublanuginosum has hairy lemmas. Such varieties, however, are seldom of much significance in grasses. Another variant, var. pakistanicum, has shortly hairy lemmas but very long spikelets. Melderis transferred it to his Eremopyrum confusum at one point, but despite the length of the glumes (up to 20 mm) they are not convincingly awned.

1300-2200 m.