Annual; culms erect or geniculately ascending, up to 50 cm high. Leaf-blades up to 15 cm long, 2-4 mm wide; sheaths glabrous or pubescent. Panicle ovate, 4-12 cm long, the branches short and ascending. Spikelets elliptic or oblong-elliptic; 6-8-flowered, 15-35(-45) mm long excluding the awns, the lemmas overlapping, concealing the internodes; lower glume lanceolate, 5-8.5 mm long, 3-5-nerved; upper glume narrowly ovate, 6.5-9.5 mm long, 7-9(-11)-nerved; lemmas oblanceolate in side view, the lower 9-12 mm long, herbaceous with broad silvery-hyaline margins widened above the middle into an obtuse angle, sometimes the margin with a blunt tooth, 9-11-nerved, glabrous or pubescent on the body, the nerves glabrous to scaberulous or ciliolate, minutely several-toothed at the tip, the lowest lemmas 1-awned, sometimes with the awn greatly reduced, the upper lemmas 3-awned with the awns arising from the back below the tip, usually purple-tinged. the central 15-25 mm long, strongly reflexed, the lateral 4-10 mm long, erect or also reflexed; palea shorter than the lemma, ciliolate on the keels; anthers 1-1.8 mm long.

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

Type: Caucasus, C. A. Meyer (LE).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan & Kashmir); Cyprus eastwards through the Middle East to southern Russia and Tibet.

This is a very handsome grass often with purple awns and pale green lemmas with silvery margins.