culms ascending, geniculate, very slender to filiform, weak, copiously branched below, 1/2–1 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, 3–4-noded, uppermost internode by far the longest, up to 3/4 ft. long; sheaths rather tight or the upper looser, smooth, with few striations, those of the flowering branches shorter than the internodes; ligules scarious, white, oblong, acute or obtuse, 1/2–1 lin. long; blades subfiliform to setaceous, flat or folded, up to 3 in. by 1/4– 1/2 lin., smooth, glabrous, few-nerved; panicle contracted, narrowly oblong, up to 1 in. long, rather loose or reduced to a scanty raceme; rhachis glabrous; pedicels scaberulous or hairy, up to 1 1/2 lin. long; spikelets oblong, 3–3 1/2 lin. long, shiny; glumes broadly-lanceolate to oblong, acute, hyaline, 3-nerved, glabrous or spreadingly hairy on the back; lower 2 1/4–2 1/2 lin. long, upper 3–3 1/2 lin. long; lowest floret usually ♂, rarely barren; valve about 2 lin. long, obscurely 3–5-nerved, with a short straight awn from 1/3 way below the tip; intermediate floret almost equal and similar to the preceding, but slightly narrower, empty, with a kneed and twisted awn 4–5 lin. long from near the base of the valve; uppermost floret hermaphrodite, 1 lin. long, faintly 3–1-nerved; anthers 1 1/2 lin. long. null