A stoloniferous, tufted, sometimes mat-forming, perennial grass with wiry culms, often with fascicles of shoots at the nodes, arching over and rooting to form long looping stolons. Leaf blades have in-rolled margins but are sometimes flat, with needle-like points, and often painfully pungent. The inflorescence is a spike-like panicle smoothly and compactly cylindrical and with branches closely appressed to the main axis; the spikelets are very dense, cylindrical, narrow and pale. Fruit is an ellipsoid grain.
Nile Valley North of Nubia (Location: Delta), Nile Valley North of Nubia (Location: Fayium), Nile Valley North of Nubia, Nubia, Libyan Desert Oases, Nubian Desert Oases, Gebel Oweinat, Mareotic Sector, North Sinai, Isthmic Desert, Libyan Desert, Nubian Desert, Arabian Desert, Galala Desert, South Red Sea Coast, North Red Sea Coast, Mountainous Southern Sinai.
Drier parts of Africa from the Mediterranean coast to South Africa, southwest Asia to India.
Seasonally inundated saline desert sand.
Perennial.
Height: To 70 cm.
