Caespitose perennial, often forming dense cushions; sterile culms sub woody, up to 10 cm high, fertile culms slender, up to 20 cm high. Leaf-blades of sterile culms flat, ovate-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 1-2(3) cm long, 2-3 mm wide, glaucous, pungent, margins spinulose, densely imbricate with short, strongly ribbed sheaths; leaf-blades of fertile culms narrowly linear, acuminate, distant. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle up to 4 cm long; primary branches erect or ascending, bare for the lower third to half. Spikelets crowded at the ends of the branches, 1.8-2.1 mm long; glumes subequal, the lower ovate to lanceolate, cuspidate, the upper oblong-ovate to narrowly elliptic, acute, 0.6-1.2 mm long, half to two-thirds as long as the spikelet; lemma oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, obtuse (acute from the side), as long as the spikelet; anthers 3, sometimes 2, 1-1.5 mm long. Grain obovoid, 0.5-0.6 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: October-May.

Type: North Africa, Letourneux (K, P).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind); North Africa, Arabia and Northwest India.

A tough desert grass often forming dense, low-growing cushions. Its economic importance in Asia is not known but in Africa it is grazed by all stock, especially sheep and goats.