The plant is a very pretty one, especially when in flower. It is a loosely tufted annual varying in height from 5 to 30 inches. Stems are slender, terete, 6 to 30 inches long, bent at the base, then geniculately ascending and finally becoming erect, glabrous, pale green or purplish. The _leaf-sheath_ is shorter than the internode, slightly compressed, obscurely keeled, glabrous and striate, margin is thinly ciliate on one side, especially towards the mouth which is bearded. The leaf-sheath embracing the peduncle is longer than the lower sheaths. The _ligule_ is a fringe of close-set hairs on an inconspicuous ridge. The _nodes_ are glabrous. The _leaf-blade_ is glaucous green, 1 to 5 inches long, 1/8 to 3/8 inch broad, linear-lanceolate or lanceolate, acuminate, flat, rounded or subcordate, and amplexicaul at base, scaberulous throughout, with tubercle-based deciduous hairs on both the surfaces, and bearded at the base above the ligule; the margin is thickened, serrulate, ciliate with bulbous-based deciduous hairs. [Illustration: Fig. 186.--Sporobolus scabrifolius. 1. Portion of a branch; 2. spikelet; 3, 4 and 5. the first, second and third glumes; 6. palea; 7. anthers and ovary; 8. grain.] The _inflorescence_ is an effuse panicle, 2-1/2 to 7 inches long and 1 to 4-1/2 inches broad, pyramidal or elliptic on a slender peduncle 1 to 7 inches long; _rachis_ is striolate, cylindric, glabrous and partly green and partly purplish. Branches are capillary, 1/2 to 2-1/2 inches long, those in the middle of the panicle are often the longest pale green at first but turning purple later, whorled regularly or irregularly, with often a solitary or twin branches intervening, spreading, horizontal, reflexed, rarely one or two erect, dividing into still finer branchlets below, ending in a few solitary spikelets above, swollen at the base near the place of insertion and naked to a short length, scabrid. The lowest whorl consists of five to ten branches and in others they vary from three to eight; the branchlets are spreading and drooping bearing from two to seven spikelets. There are glandular streaks at the base of the branches above the point of insertion in the naked portion and also on the pedicels of the spikelets.