Tufted annual; culms erect, 10-30(40) cm high. Leaf-blades setaceous, convolute, up to 10 cm long and 1 mm wide. Panicle 5-10 cm long, very lax and open, the branches solitary or paired, erect or divergent, bare at the base. Spike-lets tinged with purple; glumes subequal, narrowly lanceolate; lower glume 5.5-9 mm long, acuminate, awn-pointed, scaberulous on the keel; upper glume 5.5-10 mm long, smooth on the keel, slightly ciliate at the minutely bifid apex, with a short mucro in the sinus; lemma 7-10(14) mm long, slightly longer than the glumes, ± terete below, laterally flattened above, abruptly narrowed into a divergent, strongly twisted column, but passing into the awn without an articulation; callus narrowly oblong, c.l mm long, obtuse; column 35-10 mm long; central branch of the awn (7.5-)15-25 mm long, slightly divergent; lateral branches well-developed to almost absent, 0.2-15 mm long, always shorter and much finer than the central.

Type: Ethiopia, Chiovenda 2667 (Fl).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); Ethiopia, through Arabia to southern Iran.