Perennial, compactly cæspitose on a short rhizome with a thick basal coat of silky-tomentose sheath-bases or their remains; innovations intravaginal. Culms erect, simple, 1 to over 3 ft. high, 2–3-noded with the uppermost internode long-exserted, terete, glabrous or sometimes more or less hairy. Leaf-sheaths tight, strongly striate, the basal crowded, very firm and more or less silky-tomentose (often very densely so) downwards, forming a dense persistent ultimately glabrescent hard coat, upper terete, glabrous except at the pubescent or shortly bearded nodes and the ciliate outer margin or more or less finely hairy to almost villous; ligules reduced to a ciliate rim; blades linear from a more or less narrowed base, long-tapering to a sharp acute point, from a few inches to over 1 ft. long, 1 1/2–3 in. wide, convolute or flat, very firm, rigid, glabrous or more or less loosely hairy or ciliate along the lower margins, hairs and cilia tubercle-based, strongly and closely nerved, midrib very slender. Inflorescence mostly of 2 or 3, more rarely 4 or 5 digitate racemes, or occasionally reduced to a solitary raceme; racemes springing from a silky-pubescent node, suberect or obliquely spreading, usually stiff, 1 1/2–8 in. long, with or without a bare base, secund or subsecund, dense or rather loose and downwards interrupted; rhachis slender, straight or very slightly wavy, triquetrous, 1/5– 1/3 lin. wide, scabrid on the angles, scaberulous or puberulous between them or with longer hairs particularly downwards; pedicels mostly 2-nate, sometimes solitary owing to the arrest of the secondary spikelet, or 3–4-nate or fascicled with a very small secondary raceme on the lowest nodes, angular, scaberulous or puberulous, or with some longer additional hairs, the longest up to 2, rarely 3 and even 4 lin. long, tips subcupular. Spikelets ovate-lanceolate to ovate-oblong, shortly and acutely acuminate, dorsally moderately compressed, 2–3 lin. long, greenish or variously tinged with brown or purple. Lower glume ovate, acutely acuminate, mucronulate, 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long, membranous, 3-nerved, glabrous or very minutely pubescent, upper firmer, of the outline and size of the spikelet, densely ciliate along the margins with the cilia short and usually appressed, rarely over 1/2 lin. long and spreading, 5-nerved. Lower floret of the same length as the spikelet: valve similar to the upper glume, but glabrous, with a minutely truncate tip, more approximate side-nerves and a distinctly chartaceous texture with the exception of a triangular delicately hyaline and perfectly transparent portion at the base, sometimes mottled with brown or with faint brown transverse bands; valvule slightly over 1 lin. long, deeply 2-fid, flaps with obtuse ovate auricles extending to above the middle. Upper floret almost as long as the lower: valve lanceolate, acuminate, chartaceous, 5-nerved, delicately ciliolate, produced into a mucro or fine bristle, up to 1 1/2 lin. long; valvule with ovate acute auricles. Anthers 1 1/2 lin. long. Grain elliptic-oblong, dorsally much compressed, over 1 1/4 lin. by 2/3 lin.; scutellum rather large, reaching to the middle of the grain.
