Tufted perennial, often short-lived; culms 10.40 cm high, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades flat or inrolled, 2-15 cm long, 1-3 mm wide, stiff, glaucous, often forming a compact cushion. Panicle ovate, 3-20 cm long, open, with or without glands on the slender pedicels. Spikelets 5-18-flowered, linear, 3.5-11 mm long, 1 mm wide, grey-green to purplish green, breaking up from the base, the rhachilla persistent; glumes unequal, the lower a lanceolate hyaline scale 0.3-1 mm long, the upper ovate and 0.8-1.3 mm long; lemmas broadly elliptic to rotund, 1.1-1.7 mm long, appressed to the rhachilla, obtuse; palea minutely scaberulous on the keels, persistent; anthers 3, 0.1-0.2 mm long. Caryopsis oblong-ellipsoid, 0.6-1.2 mm long.

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

Type: Spain, Dufour (NTM).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab & N.W.F.P.); Spain and North Africa through the Middle East to India, and Sudan to Arabia.

A very distinctive species with a very delicate panicle, branches and glumes tinged with purple, leaden-grey lemmas and stiff glaucous leaves conspicuously bearded at the mouth of the sheath. Nothing seems to be known of its economic uses.