Caespitose annual; culms up to 70 cm tall, erect or ascending, branched or unbranched, glabrous at the nodes, the internodes with scattered crateriform glands especially below the nodes; leaf sheaths with scattered crateriform glands mostly on the midnerve; ligule a line of hairs; leaf laminas 3–10 cm × 2.5–5 mm, broadly linear, flat or involute, loosely pilose above or glabrous, with scattered crateriform glands on the midnerve beneath and a few along the margins, green or glaucous, stiff and somewhat pungent.
Panicle 8–16 cm long, elliptic-ovate to narrowly oblong-ovate, the spikelets evenly distributed on stiff pedicels 1.5–6 mm long, the primary branches stiffly ascending or spreading, loosely racemose (rarely themselves branched), 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, rarely absent.
Caryopsis 0.5–0.6 mm long, broadly elliptic to subrotund.