Caespitose annual; culms up to 75 cm tall, erect or ascending, branched or unbranched, glabrous at the nodes, the internodes with scattered crateriform glands and with a ring of glands below the nodes; leaf sheaths with scattered crateriform glands; ligule a line of hairs; leaf laminas 2.5–8(15) cm × 2.5–4.5(8) mm, broadly linear, flat or involute, pubescent above with additional long hairs, with crateriform glands along the margins and on the nerves beneath (especially or only on the midnerve), glaucous, stiff and pungent.
Panicle 7–15 cm long, oblong-elliptic to ovate, the spikelets evenly distributed on stiff pedicels 1–2 mm long, the primary branches stiffly ascending or spreading, loosely racemose, not in whorls, terminating in a fertile spikelet, shortly pilose in the axils, with crateriform glands along the main axis, branches and pedicels, these sometimes numerous.
Caryopsis c. 0.4 mm long, broadly elliptic to subrotund.