Perennial, usually c. 40 cm. high, densely caespitose. Culms erect, slender, usually simple, rarely branched from the upper nodes, terete, glabrous, smooth or minutely scaberulous below the nodes, c. 3-4-noded; nodes glabrous, smooth. Leaf-sheaths usually tight, glabrous, smooth, persistent. Ligule a short-ciliolate rim; auricles minutely pubescent, sometimes with long hairs; collar minutely pubescent. Leaf-laminae up to 15 x 0·1-0·15 cm. (when expanded), erect or slightly curved, usually setaceously convolute, rather firm, minutely puberulous above, glabrous, smooth beneath. Panicle 6-15 cm. long, linear-oblong, usually lax and open, sometimes contracted; axis terete in the lower part, more or less angular upwards, slightly scaberulous; branches up to 4 cm. long, solitary or 2-nate, suberect, filiform, minutely scaberulous, with 1-3 spikelets. Glumes subequal, linear-lanceolate, 1-nerved, with a prominent glabrous or scabrid keel, scabrid or shortly hirtellous on the back, often with somewhat recurved apices; the inferior 5-9 mm. long, with a short awn up to 1·5 mm. long, the superior 5·5-9·5 mm. long, usually 2-fid, with a mucro from the sinus. Lemma 6-7 mm. long, minutely scaberulous towards the apex; callus c. 0.5 mm. long, subobtuse or obtuse, shortly barbate; column 2-8 mm. long, twisted, scabrid; awns somewhat unequal, filiform, suberect or slightly spreading, scaberulous, the central 15-25 mm. long, the lateral ones 13-20 mm. long; articulation absent. 2n = 22.
