Tufted perennials. Culms erect, often grooved or compressed or angular, 14–60 cm high, sometimes sparsely glandular. Leaves mostly glabrous; ligule a fringe of hairs 0.2–0.4 mm long; blade rolled, filiform, capillary towards apex, scabrous. Panicles open, 23–40 cm long, 15–27 cm wide, decompound, scabrous; axils sometimes sparsely hairy; branches 1–5-nate, often whorled, spreading or drooping, naked of spikelets and simple in lower 3 cm or less, divided above. Spikelets long-pedicellate, lanceolate, 2.5–5.5 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide, often olive-green; rachilla wavy, slender; florets 2–7, loosely overlapping, falling entire; upper floret vestigial. Glumes unequal, lanceolate to narrowly ovate; lower glume 1–1.5 mm long; upper glume 1.2–2 mm long. Lemma elliptic, 1.5–1.7 mm long, entire or notched, acute or obtuse, membranous to almost coriaceous. Palea membranous to coriaceous; body spathulate; keels short and incising apex into 3 teeth, mostly smooth; flaps at least as wide as body. Stamens 3; anthers 0.5–0.8 mm long. Grain usually globoid, 0.5–0.8 mm long, honeycombsculptured, purplish red-black, with an acuminate stipe.
A weed ofroadsides, gardens and disturbed grasslands; grows on podsolic, brown clayeyand sandy loam soils, often in damp sites and associated with granite.
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