Slender to moderately robust, spreading annuals; culms 70-100 cm tall, usually geniculately ascending and rooting at lower nodes, usually stoloniferous and mat-forming. Sheaths 2.5-4 cm long, compressed, glabrous or with a few bulbous-based hairs on the keel; ligule a narrow fimbriate membrane; blades flat, 3-25 cm long, 2.5-7.5 (-12) mm wide, papillose-hispid, especially along margins. Inflorescences composed of (1-) 3-9 linear to narrowly oblong spikes 1.2-6.5 cm long, ascending to radiating horizontally from top of culm; spikelets 3-4-flowered, broadly ovate, 3.5-4.5 mm long; glumes subequal, 1.5-2.2 mm long, first glume lanceolate in profile, keel thick, scabrid, second glume elliptic to narrowly obovate in profile, keel smooth, prolonged into a stout, divergent, scabrid awn 0.5-2 times as long as the glume; lemmas narrowly ovate to ovate in profile, 2.6-4 mm long, keel gibbous, concave and scabrid above the middle and usually prolonged into a stout cusp or mucro up to 1 mm long; palea keels more or less winged. Caryopsis broadly obovate to triangular, ca. 1 mm long, transversely rugose

Astringent

PIER

For dysentery, lumbago and acute haemoptysis (fresh or dried plant); to relieve pains in the kidney region (seeds); ulcers (leaves and stems)