Tufted perennial without rhizomes; culms 15-75 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades nearly always involute, up to 30 cm long, occasionally flat and then up to 4 mm wide. Panicle pyramidal or narrowly lanceolate, loose, up to 20 cm long, the primary branches erect or somewhat spreading, 1.5-5 cm long, bare at the base. Spikelets 1.2-1.6 mm long; glumes lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, shorter than the spikelet, obtuse, the lower 03-0.5 mm long, the upper 0.6-0.9 mm long; lemma narrowly ovate, as long as the spikelet, acute; anthers 2, sometimes 3, 0.3-0.4 mm long. Grain oblong or elliptic-oblong, 0.6-0.8 mm long, truncate at the tip.

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

Type: India, Koenig (LD).

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab & N.W. F. P.); India to Burma, Sri Lanka and Australia.

This species is common in the plains. Duthie reports that it is eaten by horses and cattle at Lahore.