Plants stoloniferous, mat-forming perennials, culms to 45 cm tall. Leaves tough and rather glaucous; blades flat or folded, scattered papillose-hispid. Inflorescences terminal whorls of 3-4(-5) 1-sided spikelike branches; branches 0.8-2 cm long, individual branches oblong in sideview Spikelets broadly lanceolate to ovate, 4-8 mm long; glumes subequal, 1.5-2.5 mm long, upper glumes awned, the awns half as long as the body; lemmas lanceolate in profile, 3-3.8 mm lon, acute and with a mucro up to 0.8 mm long; anthers 1.2-2 mm long. Caryopses transversely rugose.
Dactyloctenium scindicum grows in grasslands and Acacia-Commiphora shrublands on shallow sandy or alluvial soils overlying limestone of gypsum at 50-1400 m, It is know from all regions N1-3, C1-2, and S1-3 of the Flora of Somalia and from northeastern Africa through Arabaia to northwestern India.