Slender annual or ephemeral plants 12.5–32 (–50) cm high; base compact. Culms often strongly branched and fastigiate, glabrous; nodes pubescent. Leaves mainly basal, hispid with tubercle-based hairs; sheaths less than half as long as culm internodes; blade 4 cm long, filiform. Panicles open, 6–10 cm long, 2–9 cm wide, with prominent pulvini. Glumes obliquely attached, 1.5–2 mm long, muticous, 5–7-nerved, smooth, glabrous. Florets shortly exceeding glumes. Callus sometimes sparsely bearded. Lemma 1.8–2 mm long (including callus), acute, muticous or cuspidulate, membranous, 3–5-nerved (often ribbed or prominent only in upper part), without grooves, pubescent with appressed silky hairs in lower 1/3–1/2 (hairs sometimes longer in upper part), glabrous and smooth above. Palea entire, muticous, pubescent with appressed silky hairs on entire body (hairs often longer towards apex and shortly exceeding apex of palea). Caryopsis c. 1 mm long.
Grows predominantly in shallow sands on outcrops, plateaux, mesas and hillslopesof sandstone; recorded also on laterite gravel, gritty and stony sand, seepage,crevices, depressions and small valleys.
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