Annual; culms 20-120 cm high, tufted or solitary, erect or geniculate at the base, slender to moderately stout. Leaf-blades 6-25(-40) cm long, 3-12 mm wide, flat, with short spreading auricles at the base. Spikes erect, 5-40 cm long, rigid, the spikelets their own length or more apart. Spikelets 8-28 mm long, 2-10(-15)-flowered; upper glume 7-30 mm long, 0.75-1.5 times the length of the spikelet, 7-9(-11)-nerved, obtuse; lemmas elliptic to ovate, 4.6-8.5 mm long, smooth, obtuse, very turgid at maturity, awnless or with an awn up to 23 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: April-August.

Type: Europe (LINN).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan, Punjab, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); perhaps native in the Mediterranean region and Southwest Asia; widely introduced elsewhere.

Found throughout its range as a weed of grain crops and is sometimes poisonous to stock. Variants with awnless or short-awned lemmas have been called var. arvense Liljeblad, Svensk Fl., ed. 3, 80. 1816.

In the plains up to 2000 m.