perennial, compactly cæspitose; culms erect, rather stout, 1–2 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, few-noded, internodes enclosed or the upper exserted; sheaths lax, striate, ciliate or villous along the margin, otherwise glabrous except the lowest which are densely tomentose at the base and more or less persistent; ligule a dense fringe of short hairs; blades linear, tapering to an oblique subacute point, filiform-involute, 1/2–1 1/2 ft. by 1–1 1/4 lin., flexuous or curved, firm, glabrous, smooth; panicle open, ovate, lax, or contracted, 4–6 in. long, erect or somewhat nodding; branches 2-nate, filiform, smooth, glabrous and purplish like the axis, branchlets and pedicels, laxly trichotomous from 3/4–1 in. above the base, lowest 2 1/2–4 1/2 in. long; pedicels very unequal, 1–4 lin. long; spikelets brownish-yellow, purplish at the back below, 6 1/2–7 1/2 lin. long, erect on sometimes nodding branchlets; glumes long and setaceously acuminate, subhyaline, scaberulous or puberulous; body of valves about 3 lin. long, shortly pubescent to villous, 7–9-nerved; lobes short or produced, acute and almost 1 lin. long; pubescent with a fine bristle 4–5 lin. long from the inner angle; awn 12–13 lin. long; kneed at a little below the middle; callus slender to 3/4 lin. long; pales equalling the valves, glabrous except at the ciliolate tips; anthers 2 lin. long. null