Slender annual or ephemeral plants (2–) 4–12 (–30) cm high. Culms simple or sparsely branched, or strongly branched and fastigiate at upper nodes, hispid with tubercle-based hairs or glabrous; nodes glabrous. Leaves hispid with tubercle-based hairs; sheaths usually shorter than culm internodes, with basal sheaths almost glabrous; blade to 2 cm long, to 3.5 mm wide, scabrous, hispid especially along margins. Panicles open or contracted, 1–5 cm long, 0.5–1 cm wide. Glumes 2–5 mm long, muticous or sometimes cuspidulate, 5–7-nerved, smooth, glabrous. Florets subequal to glumes (often slightly exserted); lemma and palea slightly divergent or appressed. Lemma 3–4.8 mm long, acuminate, cuspidate or rarely aristulate, membranous with hyaline margins, strongly 5-nerved, without grooves, hirsute in lower 1/3–1/2, glabrous and smooth above, ciliate on submargins in lower c. 2/3. Palea entire or bifid into cusps to 1 mm long, pubescent between keels. Caryopsis 1.3–1.5 mm long.
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