perennial, tufted; culms erect or ascending, firm, slender, branched from the lower and intermediate nodes, 1 1/2 ft. high, glabrous, smooth, 5–6-noded, internodes exserted; sheaths glabrous, finely striate, firm, tight at first, then loosened or thrown aside, the lowest tomentose at the very base; ligule a fringe of soft short hairs; blades linear, tapering to an acute point, 3–6 in. by 1 1/2–2 lin., firm, setaceously convolute and rigid when young, at length flat and subflaccid, glabrous or with a few scattered fugacious hairs, smooth below, scaberulous or pruinose on the upperside; panicle pyramidal or oblong, erect, stiff, 3–4 in. by 1–2 in., lax, open; axis filiform, smooth; branches solitary or the lowest subopposite, obliquely erect or spreading, loosely and often divaricately divided from a few lines above the base, or simply racemose, filiform, smooth or scaberulous in the upper part, the longest 3/4–2 in. long; lowest branchlets again divided, or like the rest simple, 4–1-spiculate, spreading or adpressed, all divisions yellowish; pedicels short; spikelets scattered, lanceolate to oblong, 1–2 lin. long, dark olive-grey, 2–4-flowered; rhachilla disarticulating; glumes lanceolate, subequal in profile, delicate, finely 1-nerved or nerveless, lower about 1/2 lin., upper 2/3 lin. long; valves ovate-oblong, obtuse, 3/4– 5/6 lin. long, very thin, smooth or scaberulous towards the margins, keel smooth, side-nerves faint; pales equal to the valves, keels fine, almost smooth; anthers 1/4– 1/3 lin. long; grain obovoid-ellipsoid, 1/3 lin. by 1/6– 1/5 lin. null