Creeping annual; culms forming large loose mats, rooting at lower nodes, freely branching, usually pubescent. Sheaths usually much shorter than internodes, pilose or papillate-pilose with spreading trichomes; blades +/- linear-lanceolate to short ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, 1-3.5 (5) cm long, 4-10 mm wide, usually papillate-pilose. Inflorescences of 2 to several spreading racemes, pubescent in axils, the lowermost 1-3 cm long; spikelets 3-4 mm long, appressed, sparsely pilose especially along margins on glumes and sterile lemma; first glume acuminate or attenuate, almost aristate, two-thirds or more as long as spikelet; second glume and sterile lemma +/- equal, longer than fruit. Fruits 2-2.5 mm long, oblong-elliptic, the wings reduced to inconspicuous scars. Ebinger 282. Guatemala south to Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, and Brazil; Trinidad. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, and Panama, from premontane moist forest in the Canal Zone and Panama, and from premontane wet forest in Chiriqui.