Tufted annual or short-lived perennial; culms 10-80 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, sometimes rooting from the lower nodes. Leaf-blades flat or inrolled, 2-20 cm long, up to 5.5 mm wide, subamplexicaul at the base, the apex subacute, glabrous or sparsely hairy towards the base. Panicle narrowly oblong to broadly ovate, 5-20 cm long, open or fairly densely contracted. Spikelets 11-80-flowered, ovoid to oblong, 3.5-16 mm long, 2.54 mm wide, the florets slightly overlapping and often diverging at nearly 90 degrees from the rhachilla, typically straw-coloured, tinged to deeply suffused with purple, breaking up from the base, the rhachilla persistent; glumes unequal, narrowly lanceolate in side-view, 1-nerved, the lower 1.3-1.7 mm long, the upper 1.7-1.9 mm long, subacute; lemmas broadly ovate to suborbicular when flattened, (1.5)1.8-2.2 mm long, punctulate, mucronulate, the nerves distinct; palea falling with the lemma, the keels scabrid; anthers 3, 0.2 mm long. Caryopsis obovoid or ellipsoid, laterally compressed, 0.6-0.8 mm long, orange-brown.

Type: India, Koenig (LD).

Distribution: Kashmir; Southeast Asia.

This species is common throughout India but from our area it is known only from Kashmir. As there are no records from Iran or Afghanistan, it is possible that it does not occur in Pakistan. It should be looked for. It is called Eragrostis amabilis Wight & Arn. ex Nees in Fl. Brit. Ind. 7:317 and on many herbarium sheets.

Eragrostis unioloides is a hardy, but sporadic, species whose value as a fodder grass is unknown.