Annual; culms 3-45cm high, usually erect. Leaf-blades 0.5-8cm long, 0.2-0.5mm wide, minutely hairy above, glabrous or almost so beneath. Inflorescence a rather rigid, secund raceme, 1-16cm long, sometimes with short branches at the lower nodes; pedicels 0.7-1.6mm long. Spikelets 4-8mm long (excluding the awns), breaking up at maturity below each fertile floret; most florets fertile. Lower glume 1.5-3.5mm long, half to three-quarters the length of the upper; upper glume 3-5mm long; fertile lemma 3-5mm long, usually with an awn as long or longer, sometimes ± awnless, finely 5-nerved, glabrous to pubescent; anthers 3, 0.7-1.3mm long, exserted at anthesis.

Type locality: southern Europe.

Distribution: Kashmir; Mediterranean region eastwards to the Middle East and southern USSR.