Caespitose perennial, up to 50 cm high. Leaf-blades narrow, rolled, 2-10 cm long, smooth, flexuous. Panicle 9-12 cm long, open or ± contracted. Spikelets pallid or tinged with purple; glumes unequal or subequal, glabrous, the lower 7.5-9 mm long, the upper 8-11 mm long; lemma 2-4 mm long, scabrid, rather abruptly narrowed into the awn; callus 0.75 mm long, acute, bearded, the hairs increasing in length upward; column 6-8 mm long, glabrous below, bearded above and below the knee; central branch of the awn 3-6 cm long, plumose throughout except for the excurrent naked tip; lateral branches glabrous, 10-12 mm long.

Type: India, Jacquemont (P).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan & N.W.F.P.); Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and Northwest India.