Perennial, up to 1 m. high, densely caespitose. Culms erect, simple or branched, terete or slightly compressed, glabrous or slightly scaberulous below the nodes, c. 4-noded; nodes glabrous. Leaf-sheaths tight, glabrous or scaberulous, the lower slightly compressed. Ligule a ciliolate rim; auricles barbate or slightly pubescent; collar minutely pubescent. Leaf-laminae usually up to 20 cm., scarcely 1 mm. wide when expanded, coarse, involute or flat at the base, curling when old, scabrid or hirtellous above, glabrous or scaberulous beneath, with thickened scabrous margins. Panicle up to 20 cm. long, erect, lax or contracted but much interrupted, with an angular or triquetrous scabrous axis; branches remote, naked in the lower part, scabrid. Spikelets pallid or yellowish-green, sometimes tinged with purple, densely congested towards the ends of the branchlets. Glumes unequal, lanceolate, 1-nerved; the inferior 5·5-8 mm. long, scaberulous on the keel, subobtuse or emarginate or slightly 2-fid, with very obtuse lateral lobes, mucronate from the sinus; the superior 8-11 mm. long, smooth, truncate at the apex and shortly awned or 2-lobed, with a mucro from the sinus. Lemma 7-11 mm. long, slightly compressed, smooth or scaberulous on the keel; callus 1 mm. long, subobtuse, densely barbate; beak or column absent; awns scabrous, subequal, the central 9-15 mm. long, the lateral ones 7-13 mm. long; articulation absent. 2n = 55.
