Perennial, compactly cæspitose, up to 3 ft. high. Culms slender, 4–6-noded, erect, more or less compressed downwards, glabrous. Leaf-sheaths quite glabrous and smooth, the lower crowded, laterally compressed, keeled, subflabellate-imbricate, the upper shorter; ligules reduced to a minutely ciliolate rim; blades linear, acute, plicate or opening out, at the base passing imperceptibly into the sheath or the upper slightly contracted, up to over 1/2 ft. by 2 lin., somewhat firm, pale green to glaucous, quite glabrous or with a few tubercle-based stiff hairs at the lower margins, smooth, midrib very slender, lateral nerves about 3 on each side. Panicle shortly exserted, erect, ovate-oblong, 3–4 in. long, loose or somewhat contracted; rhachis very slender, smooth; branches in about 5 or 6 whorls of up to 10 rays, finely filiform, 1/2 to over 1 in. long, almost quite smooth, flexuous, tips slightly thickened and oblique, minutely ciliate; pedicels gradually thickened, glabrous below, ciliate-bearded upwards, 1 1/2 lin. long; uppermost hairs 1 1/2 lin. long, bright fulvous. Sessile spikelet linear-subulate (seen from the back), acute, 3–4 lin. long, pale. Glumes chartaceous, laterally much compressed, glabrous; lower distinctly shorter, 4-nerved, keel minutely scabrid upwards; upper 3-nerved, keeled, keel hispidulous towards the tip, produced into a scaberulous bristle of the length of the glume. Valve of lower floret lanceolate, up to almost 2 1/2 lin. long, of upper up to 1 1/2 lin. long, 1-nerved; awn 3/4–1 in. long, pale. Anthers 1 1/2 lin. long. Pedicelled spikelet as long as the sessile, narrowly lanceolate, glabrous. Glumes thin, almost membranous, lower 7-nerved, passing into an awn up to 2 lin. long; upper of equal length with a fine point, 3-nerved, hyaline margins reversedly ciliate. Valves linear, 2–2 1/2 lin. long, muticous, delicately hyaline, reversedly ciliate, lower finely 3-, upper 1-nerved.
