Annual plants 35–60 cm high; base sparsely pubescent. Culms simple, glabrous; nodes glabrous. Leaves mostly glabrous and smooth; sheaths longer than lower culm internodes, slightly shorter than upper culm internodes; blade to 20 cm long, to 2.5 mm wide, sometimes hirsute near ligule, sometimes pilose with simple or tubercle-based hairs, with bladder-like vesicles along nerves. Inflorescences open, 10–12 cm long, 3–5 cm wide; reduced panicles and solitary spikelets sometimes present in basal axils of leaf sheaths. Spikelets sometimes cleistogamous. Glumes 4.8–8 mm long, muticous or cuspidate, with cusp to 0.6 mm long, 11–13-nerved, smooth, glabrous on back, ciliolate on margins near apex. Florets usually slightly shorter than glumes. Callus mostly bearded, with a glabrous tip. Lemma 5–5.5 mm long, awned, cartilaginous, thickly 5-nerved, sometimes depressed between nerves but not distinctly grooved, hirsute with simple hairs in lower half, with hairs sometimes almost reaching lemma apex, glabrous and smooth in most of upper part, scaberulous near apex; awn c. 18 mm long, recurved. Palea 5–6 mm long, elongated into bicuspidulate beak (cusps to 0.5 mm long), hirsute in lower half, glabrous above, scabrous near apex. Caryopsis c. 2 mm long.
Occurs inseasonally wet depressions, pools and damp places, often in heavy-texturedsoils, in association with open forests of Eucalyptus and Melaleuca spp.
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