Densely caespitose perennial, or with the shoots contiguous from the closely spaced nodes of a short oblique rhizome; basal sheaths yellowish, indurated, often covered by the fibrous remains of decaying sheaths; culms 15-60 cm high, erect. Leaf-blades flat, or more often convolute, 4-10 cm long, 1-3 mm wide, the tip filiform. Panicle narrowly ovate, 7-20 cm long, secondarily branched, the branches bare below and the spikelets secund and clustered at the tips of the branchlets. Spikelets (1.5-)1.7-2.1 mm long, scaberulous or smooth, pallid greyish green to dark green; lower glume lanceolate, 0.8-1 mm long, acute; upper glume narrowly ovate, (0.9)1.3-1.9 mm long, two-thirds to four-fifths as long as the spikelet, acute; lemma narrowly ovate, as long as the spikelet, anthers 3, 0.8-1 mm long. Grain ellipsoid, 0.6 mm long.

Type: Ethiopia, Schimper in Herb. Buchinger 1309 (P).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind); Kenya, Tanzania and Mauritania through Ethiopia and Somalia to Arabia; also in South West Africa.

Sporobolus stocksii, formerly regarded as a Sind endemic, is now known to be conspecific with the African Sporobolus nervosus.