Perennial, about 1 1/2 ft. high, with intra- and extravaginal innovations, their cataphylls glabrous, firm. Culms very slender, erect, simple and 4–5-noded below the panicle, terete, glabrous, smooth. Leaf-sheaths terete, glabrous, smooth; ligules very short, truncate, glabrous; blades narrowly linear from an equally wide base, tapering to a fine point, up to over 6 in. by 1–1 1/2 lin., dull green, glabrous or very finely and sparingly hairy, smooth except towards and on the margins; midrib slender, primary lateral nerves 2–3 on each side, slender. Spatheate panicle 3–4 in. long, contracted, of 6–2 raceme-pairs; the lowest tiers 2-rayed or like the others 1-rayed, all the rays simple, filiform, 1– 1/2 in. long; subtending leaves with more or less inflated herbaceous sheaths and the lower with well developed blades which equal or exceed the panicle. Spatheoles linear-lanceolate, acuminate, about 1–1 1/4 in. long, scarious, glabrous, smooth, dark reddish; peduncles filiform, glabrous, about half as long as the spatheoles. Racemes dense, soon spreading, at length epinastically reflexed, glabrous, reddish-green, about 2/3 in. long, 3–5-awned per pair; bases unequal, the lower very short, the upper linear-filiform, dorsally flattened, up to 1 lin. long, both pubescent in the fork, otherwise glabrous; joints filiform, up to 1 1/2 lin. long, white-ciliate, cilia short; pedicels very similar. Homogamous pair of spikelets 1 at the base of the lower raceme only. Fertile spikelets oblong, acuminate, 3–3 1/2 lin. long, glabrous, dark green; callus very short, obtuse, shortly bearded. Glumes equal, chartaceous; the lower rather firm, 2-denticulate, flattened on the back, rounded on the sides, margins very narrowly involute to beyond the middle, then rather sharply inflexed, keels very fine, scaberulous, nerves 9–11, somewhat stout and raised; upper glume deltoid-truncate, 3-nerved, sparingly ciliolate. Lower floret reduced to a linear-oblong obscurely 2-nerved minutely and sparingly ciliolate hyaline valve. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve stipitiform, 2-dentate, eciliate, awn 9–10 lin. long, slender, column scabrid; valvule 0. Pedicelled spikelets ♂ linear-lanceolate, glabrous, dark dull red; lower glume subcoriaceous, about 9-nerved, very acute; upper slightly shorter, acutely acuminate, chartaceous, 3-nerved; valves narrowly oblong or lanceolate, hyaline, very obscurely ciliolate, the lower 3–1-, the upper 1-nerved. Homogamous spikelets like the pedicelled member of the heterogamous pair.