perennial, tufted, 1–2 ft. high; culms geniculate, ascending or erect, sometimes rooting from the lowest nodes, glabrous like the whole plant, many-noded, internodes usually enclosed or shortly exserted; sheaths rather loose, smooth, strongly striate; ligules scarious, 1–1 1/2 lin. long, ciliolate; blades linear, tapering to an acute point, 2–5 in. by 1–3 lin., glaucous, flat, flaccid or subrigid, often spreading at right angles, smooth below, scabrid on the upper surface, finely but prominently nerved; panicle erect, more or less spike-like, interrupted or lobed, 1–3 in. long, very dense; branches fascicled, unequal, longest to 1/2 in. long, rarely longer, scabrid, branched from the base, straight; pedicels usually very short; spikelets greenish, 3/4 lin. long; rhachilla not or very obscurely produced; glumes subequal, oblong, subacute or obtuse, minutely mucronulate or emarginate, scaberulous, keels scabrid, margins minutely ciliolate; valve broadly oblong, 2/5 lin. long, truncate, minutely denticulate or ciliolate, smooth, very faintly 5-nerved, awnless; pale almost as long as the valve, hyaline, obscurely 2-nerved, obtuse, tip ciliolate; anthers apiculate, 1/3– 1/5 lin. long; grain broadly obovoid, terete, 3/8 lin. long. null
