Tufted annual; culms up to 25 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades flat, 6-8 cm long, 2-3 mm wide, smooth beneath, scabrid and sometimes also puberulous above. Spike oblong, 2.5-5 cm long, hairy. Spikelets 3-5 (-6)-flowered, the uppermost florets ± reduced; glumes narrowly lanceolate, 13-17 mm long (including the 6-7 mm long awn), slightly curved, villous on the sides; lemmas as long as or slightly longer than the glumes, densely villous, with an awn 5-7 mm long; palea-keels produced into 2 awned teeth 0.5-1.5 mm long with a deep sinus between them.

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

Type: USSR, Armenia, C. Koch 636 (LE).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); Turkey eastwards through the Middle East and southern USSR to Central Asia.

700-2700 m.