Loosely tufted perennial with erect or shortly decumbent, wooly culms 5-60 cm high, and very thick, sand-covered roots. Leaf-blades glaucous, linear, pungent, up to 6 cm long and 3 mm wide (when flat),usually hairy on both surf-faces; sheaths lax, often scarious below, covered with silky hairs. Panicle dense, narrow, up to 15 cm long and 2 cm wide, partly enclosed in the spathe-like upper-most leaf-sheath. Spikelets 2-3-flowered, crowded, 7-10 mm long, pale yellow or tinged with purple; glumes lanceolate to lanceolate-elliptic, subequal, as long as the spikelet; body of lowest lemma 2.1-2.5 mm long, the lobes 1.6-2.2 mm long; awn 2-4.5 mm long; anthers 3, 0.7-1.2 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: November-April, or longer.

Type: “In desertis Kahirinis”.

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); North and north tropical Africa; Egypt and Arabia to Baluchistan; Central Asia.

A desert species.