Perennial (according to Barter), up to 4 ft. high. Culms erect or ascending, much branched below, with the branches in erect fascicles, slender, glabrous, many-noded, lower nodes not or only shortly exserted. Leaf-sheaths tight, terete, quite glabrous and smooth or ciliolate towards the mouth, prominently striate; ligule reduced to a narrow membranous ciliolate rim; blades linear from an equally wide base, long-attenuated to a long subulate point, 2–4 in. by 1–1 1/2 lin., suberect, rigid, flat or more or less involute, green, glabrous below, loosely hairy above, at least downwards, midrib very slender, lateral primary nerves 2–3 on each side, margins rough. Panicle erect, somewhat stiff, more or less exserted from the uppermost sheath, 2 1/2–6 in. by 1–2 in., loose, divided to the third or fourth degree; common axis slender, terete, smooth; lowest internodes 1– 1/2 (rarely 1 1/2) in. long; lowest primary branches divided from or near the base forming very unequal false whorls, like the following obliquely erect and stiff, equalling half or three-quarters the length of the panicle, finely filiform, smooth or here and there slightly rough; ultimate divisions finely capillary, more or less wavy, usually quite smooth, obliquely spreading; pedicels unequal, the lateral up to 1 lin., the terminal up to 2 1/2 lin. long, tips minutely discoid. Spikelets rotundate-obovate or suborbicular in outline, 1/2 to almost 3/4 lin. long, somewhat turgid, pale green or faintly tinged with brown, more or less dull. Glumes thinly membranous, obliquely ovate-oblong in profile, subacute to obtuse, loosely pubescent, distinctly and finely nerved, the lower four-fifths the length of the spikelet and 3-nerved, the upper equalling the spikelet, and 5-nerved. Lower floret ♂; valve very like the upper glume, but glabrous; valvule slightly shorter; anthers 1/2 lin. long. Upper floret hermaphrodite, elliptic in outline, subobtuse, 1/2 lin. long; valve and valvule thinly papery, whitish or ultimately pale brown, very minutely and sparingly verrucose at least upwards; anthers slightly smaller than in the ♂ floret.