Annual; culms (6-)18-45(-70) cm high, tufted, erect or geniculate at the base, moderately stout. Leaf-blades 5-17 cm long, 0.5-5(-8) mm wide, usually flat, with or without auricles up to 3.5 mm long at the base. Spikes straight or curved, 3-30 cm long, the rhachis rigid, slender to very thick, the spikelets slightly less than their own length apart. Spikelets 5-18 mm long, 5-8(-11)-flowered; upper glume 4-20(-30) mm long, half as long as to longer than the spikelets, 3-7(-9)-nerved, obtuse, rarely acute to acuminate; lemmas oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 3.2-8.5(-105) mm long, glabrous to scaberulous, obtuse, acute or erose at the tip, not turgid at maturity, usually awnless but rarely with a terminal awn up to 3(-10) mm long.

Type: Switzerland (LAU).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan; Punjab); southern Europe and the Mediterranean regions eastwards to Uzbekistan; introduced to most temperate countries.

This species intergrades with both Lolium perenne and Lolium multiflorurn. Certain variants are almost impossible to distinguish from the former if the base of the plant is missing since the only difference is that one is annual and the other perennial.