Tufted annual 10-30(-55) cm high. Leaf-blades flat or involute, 1-4 mm wide, glabrous below, glabrous or thinly puberulous above; ligule 0.3-0.5 mm long. Panicle densely contracted, very untidy when mature, 3-15 cm long, partially enclosed by the slightly inflated sheath of the uppermost leaf, at length often fully exserted. Glumes unequal, the lower slightly longer than the upper, narrowly lanceolate and long-acuminate, 13-22 mm long, the lower 3-nerved, the upper 1-nerved; lemma ± terete, 5.5-7.5 mm long (including callus), covered on the back with rows of short hairs, dorsiventrally flattened just below the tip, then expanded again at the base of the awn, entire at the tip; callus acuminate, pungent, 1.5-2 mm long. Awns bigeniculate, conspicuously articulated at the base, becoming twisted together at maturity to form a tail at the summit of the panicle, 60-100 mm long; column puberulous with hairs 0.2-0.8 mm long; bristle scabrid.

Fl. & Fr. Per. March-May (September in Kashmir).

Type: South Africa, Thunberg (UPS).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan, Punjab, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Mediterranean region eastwards to Northwest India; South Africa.

This, the only annual species of Stipa found locally, is characteristic of dry stony hillsides and deserts. Specimens are frequently found to have been attacked by a gall (probably Tetramesa stipae Stefani, fide R. B. Benson 1959) which causes a bulbous swelling towards the tip of the rhachis.