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Fertile lemma slightly shorter than the spikelet, cymbiform, coriaceous, with 2 longitudinal lateral grooves; flanks stiffly hispid to glabrous, inconspicuously tessellate; keels rounded, usually stiffly ciliate mainly towards the apex; apical callus usually dark purplish; awn (6·5)8-16(-19) cm. long, stiff, salmon-pink to purplish when fresh, terete or obtusely angular, densely covered with short forwardly directed bristles.
Panicle 20-35 x 3-7·5 cm., obdeltoid, rather dense, many-flowered, erect or more rarely somewhat nodding; rhachis stout, angular, sulcate, glabrous, smooth; branches usually erect or obliquely ascending, often appressed to the rhachis, angular, scaberulous.
An annual cereal grass. It grows 60-120 cm tall. There are 3-8 nodes. It produces aerial roots from the lower nodes. The stems are spongy. The flower panicles are 20-35 cm long by 3-8 cm wide. There are many flowers. The grains fall off easily.
Leaf-laminae 15-45 x 0·4-1·3 cm., linear to very narrowly elliptic (always broadest around the middle), apex acute, intense green, flaccid, glabrous, smooth on the lower, asperulous on the upper surface; midrib not very distinct, pale.
Sterile lemmas 2·5-4·5 mm. long, equal in length or nearly so, similar in shape, lanceolate or narrowly triangular in lateral view, acute, chartaceous-coriaceous, smooth or dorsally asperulous.
Spikelets 8-10·5 mm. long (excl. the awn), up to 3·4 mm. wide, deciduous, obliquely inserted on the pedicel, oblong to oblong-semi-elliptic in lateral view, pale green to straw coloured.
Culms 60-120 (rarely more) cm. tall, 3-8-noded, rather weak, erect or geniculately ascending, producing aerial roots from the lower nodes, terete, spongy, striate, smooth, glabrous.
Leaf-sheaths scarious, striate, somewhat tight when young later loose and usually wrinkled, smooth, glabrous, produced into short auricles at the mouth.
Palea about as long as the lemma but much narrower, similar in texture and indument, with the apex drawn out in short blunt purplish point.
Ligule 3-6 (rarely-9) mm. long, thinly membraneous, truncate, or rounded.
Pedicels 1-6 mm. long, stout, striate, scaberulous or smooth, glabrous.
Glumes reduced to a tiny 2-lobed rim, remaining at the pedicel.
An annual aquatic grass growing in tufts.
