Perennial; culms often woody below, up to 90 cm high, simple or suffruticose, erect from a thick woody rhizome covered with firm, imbricate, often silky cataphylls, these often decaying into stiff parallel fibres. Leaf-blades firm, flat or convolute, up to 30 cm long and 6 mm wide, glaucous. Racemes up to 10 cm long, silky vinous from internodes, pedicels and glumes. Sessile spikelet 6-13 mm long; lower glume lanceolate, often caudate, bidentate at the tip with divergent teeth, often spreading horizontally at maturity. Pedicelled spikelet usually 5-7 mm long, the pedicel free.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: March-May and September-October.

Type: Pakistan, Sind, Stocks (L).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab, N.W. F. P.); Northwest India westwards to Iraq; tropical Arabia; Egypt: Ethiopia, Somalia and Mali.

A valuable fodder grass said to be relished by camels, sheep and cattle.