stems erect, usually 2–3 from a dense tuft of barren shoots, glabrous; leaf-sheaths villous to glabrescent; ligules broad-ovate, up to 2 lin. long; blades linear, up to 9 in. by 3 lin., but usually shorter and much narrower, villous to glabrescent, scabrid; panicle or racemes up to 3/4 ft. long, nodding, usually secund; branches scantily branched or simple, finely filiform, flexuous; spikelets 9–14 lin. long, 2–3-flowered, 2–3-awned, 7–9-nerved; rhachilla freely disarticulating below and between the valves, joints between the valves villous; glumes lanceolate, acuminate; valves narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, bifid; lobes produced into fine bristles, the lowest 6–9 lin. long (excluding the bristles), pallid to brown below the long whitish scarious tips, densely covered with fine stiff whitish or yellowish hairs to the middle, scaberulous, 7-nerved, all awned except the uppermost; awn from the middle, scabrid, column dark; anthers 1–1 1/4 lin. long; ovary villous all over; grain tightly embraced, free, slender, oblong, 3–4 lin. long, silky. null
