Tufted annual; culms up to 25 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades flat, 3-6 cm long, 2-3 mm wide, scaberulous, sometimes also puberulous above. Spike ovate-elliptic, up to 2.5 cm long, conspicuously hairy. Spikelets 2-3-flowered; glumes lanceolate, 10-15 mm long (including the 2-5 mm long awn), strongly curved, hispid on the sides; lemma as long as the glumes, hispid, with an awn 4-5 mm long; palea-keels produced into 2 short blunt teeth with a shallow sinus between them.

Type locality: Turkey or Greece.

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); Southeast Europe eastwards to Central Asia and western Siberia.

The distinction between this species and Eremopyrum confusum Meld. must be reexamined. The characters used by Bor (l.c.) in his keys-particularly the shape of the inflorescence-do not make for a convincing separation. When Melderis published his new species he pointed out how it differs from Eremopyrum distans instead of drawing a more useful comparison with Eremopyrum orientale. The latter differs from Eremopyrum distans in a similar way to Eremopyrum confusum the palea-keels are not awned. Of all the material seen from Pakistan none can be ascribed to Eremopyrum confusum with any certainty and only one collection corresponds to Eremopyrum orientale.