Annual; culms decumbent or geniculate-spreading to erect, often rooting at lower nodes, glabrous. Sheaths glabrous to papillose-hirsute (especially at apex); ligules membranaceous, truncate; blades mostly 4-10 cm long and 4-10 mm wide, minutely scabrous and also sparsely pilose; racemes 2 to several, digitate or in up to 3 whorls; rachis ca 1 mm wide, narrowly winged, its margin scabrous; spikelets paried on rachis, one nearly sessile, the other pedicellate, ca 3 mm long, the first glume minute, the second glume one-half to three-fourths as long as fruit; sterile lemma longer than fruit, prominently veined, the margins often villous. Fruits lanceolate, pale brown, ca 3.5 mm long, bearing several rows of long villous trichomes. Shattuck 356a. Distinguished from Axonopus compressus, with which it may be confused, by having two spikelets per node. This species was treated by Standley (1933) and the Flora of Panama as D. sanguinalis (L.) Scop. However, D. sanguinalis is restricted to temperate regions, whereas this species inhabits tropical and subtropical regions.