Leafy compact annual or short-lived perennial plants 6–48 cm high. Culms simple or sometimes branched and fastigiate, usually glabrous and smooth; nodes bearded. Leaves hirsute to hispid with simple and tubercle-based hairs or glabrous; sheaths longer than lower culm internodes and slightly shorter than upper culm internodes; blade to 19 cm long, to 5.5 mm wide, smooth or scabrous. Panicles terminal or axillary on culms and branches, open, 4–9 cm long, 2–6 cm wide, with prominent bearded pulvini. Glumes (4.5–) 7.5–9.3 (–11.5) mm long, muticous or sometimes cuspidate, usually 9–11-nerved, pilose or hirsute with tubercle-based hairs or rarely glabrous. Florets subequal to glumes. Lemma usually 5.8–6.8 mm long, awned or rarely cuspidate, cartilaginous, (sometimes obscurely) 5–7-nerved, bisulcate, hirsute in lower 3/4–4/5 with hairs well exceeding lemma apex; awn usually 4–10 mm long. Palea with beak, bicuspidulate or bifid into 2 awnlets 1.5–5 (–9) mm long, with indumentum similar to lemma. Caryopsis 2.8–3.8 mm long.
A characteristic species of the arid interior, but extendinginto semi-arid areas in Qld and N.S.W. A common species of sand dunes, sandplains and sand hills; also of seasonally flooded, alluvial sandy or loamyflood plains, levees and swales; sometimes also in shallow, stony soils onsandstone and quartzite outcrops and ridges.
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