Loosely tufted annual; culms 1-25cm high, erect, spreading or prostrate, very slender, compressed. Leaf-blades flat or folded, 0.5-8cm long, 1-2(-4) mm wide, flaccid, abruptly contracted to a blunt or subacute tip, scaberulous on the margins; ligule blunt, up to 3mm long. Panicle ovate-lanceolate, 0.5-10cm long, loose; branches paired or solitary, erecto-patent after anthesis, smooth. Spikelets with (2–)4–6 widely spaced florets, ovate or oblong, 2–4mm long, green; glumes unequal, the lower ovate, 1–1.5mm long, 1–nerved, the upper elliptic or oblong, 1.3-2.5mm long, 1–3–nerved; lemmas oblong in side–view, 2–2.5mm long, blunt, densely hairy on the keel and nerves, without wool at the base; palea as long as the lemma, densely hairy all along the keels; anthers 0.2-0.5mm long, scarcely longer than wide.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: March–April.

Type: Colombia, Kunth..

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab & N. W. F. P.); South America; southern Europe eastwards to the Himalayas and Central Asia.

Early Meadow–grass is an uncommon weedy species of gardens and farm-land, of no consequence as a fodder grass.