Perennial; culms erect or ± geniculately ascending, 15-150 cm high. Leaf-blades flar (filiform in Arabia, Iraq and Iran), 10-50 cm long, 1-4 mm wide, dull green to reddish. narrowed at the base, attenuate to a filiform tip; basal sheaths persistent, thinly to densely pubescent, sometimes almost glabrous. False panicle 5-35 cm long, erect; spatheoles narrowly lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 2-2.6 (-4.3) cm long. Racemes 15-40 mm long, lowermost pedicel swollen and barrel-shaped, free from the adjacent pedicel which is also sometimes swollen; internodes and pedicels densely ciliate along the margins, glabrous to minutely puberulous on the back. Sessile spikelet narrowly lanceolate, 4-7 mm long; lower glume flattish to deeply concave on the back; upper lemma deeply bifid, with an awn 10-20 mm long. Chromosome number. 2n=20.40.

Fl & Fr. Per.: April-October.

Type: Ethiopia, Schimper 1801 (K).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab & N.W.F.P.); Mauritania, eastwards to Somalia and Tanzania; through Arabia to Iraq and northern India.