Loosely tufted annual; culms 30-100 cm high, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades flat, up to 20 cm long and 5 mm wide. Panicle ovate, 7-30 cm long, very loose and open, the spikelets trembling on long fine pedicels, sometimes bearded in the axils. Spikelets 10-60-flowered, linear, 5-25 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, the lemmas closely imbricate and covering the rhachilla, purplish, breaking up from the base, the rhachilla persistent; glumes unequal, subacute, the lower narrowly ovate and 0.8-1.2 mm long, the upper ovate and 1.2-1.5 mm long; lemmas broadly ovate, 1.5-1.7 mm long, obtuse (ovate and subacute in side-view); palea scabrid on the keels, persistent; anthers 2, 0.3-0.5 mm long. Caryopsis subglobose to broadly ovoid, 0.4-0.6 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: March-November.

Type: Sudan, Kotschy 6 (K).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind & Punjab); throughout tropical Africa and in India and Afghanistan.

A useful fodder grass but with too little foliage to be of much importance. Its grain has been used in time of famine.