Caespitose perennial forming dense clumps; culms up to 35 cm high, one-noded, the node black. Leaf-blades filiform, tightly inrolled, 3-12 cm long, smooth and glabrous or sometimes long villous, stiff, curved or flexuous. Panicle 4-17cm long, contracted. Spikelets pallid or tinged with purple; glumes glabrous, subequal, 8-10.5 mm long; lemma 2-2.7 mm long, smooth, abruptly contracted above into the awn; callus 1 mm long, acute, bearded, the hairs on the callus short, those at the base of the lemma longer; column of awn 5-9(14) mm long, glabrous; central branch of the awn 2.5.4 cm long, conspicuously purple, plumose to the tip in the upper half or two-thirds; lateral branches glabrous, 10-18 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: March-April and again in October-November.

Type: Egypt, Delile (MPU).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); North Africa from Morocco to Egypt; Arabia eastwards to Pakistan; South Africa.