Tufted or stoloniferous annual. Culms erect or geniculate near at base, to 50 cm high. Leaves glabrous, or sometimes the lower ones sparsely pilose; blade flat, 2–12 cm long, 2.5–5 mm wide; ligule truncate, often torn, 1–2.5 mm long. Panicle of 2 or 3 (rarely to 5), angular but hardly winged, one-sided, spike-like racemes 5–8 cm long, terminal or one (or more) attached slightly below the terminal pair. Spikelets acute, 3–3.7 mm long, paired, on unequal pedicels, the longer pedicel c. 3 mm long; lower glume vestigial or apparently lacking; upper glume 5- or 7-nerved, as long as spikelet, margins usually shortly and appressedly ciliate; lower lemma ersembling glume; palea of lower floret vestigial or absent; lemma of upper (bisexual) floret acute, equal to spikelet, dorsally rounded, smooth or minutely striate, brown or purplish at maturity.
EGL. Also naturalised WA, SA, NSW. Native to S. America. Known in Victoria from a sandy roadside site adjacent to seasonally wet heathland near Mallacoota.
