perennial, tufted; culms very slender, erect or geniculate, 1 1/2–2 ft. long, simple or branched, about 4-noded, wiry, glabrous, smooth, internodes exserted; sheaths very tight, the upper quite glabrous, the lower long, bearded at the mouths, smooth; blades setaceously convolute, fine, up to 1/2 ft. long, light green to glaucous, smooth below, minutely scaberulous above, margins scabrid; panicle narrow, linear to oblong, contracted or open, 3–8 in. long; rhachis strict or flexuous; branches geminate or fascicled, simple for 1/4– 1/2 in., then sparingly and remotely branched; branchlets capillary, flexuous, smooth, or minutely scaberulous above; pedicels as long as the spikelets or longer, tips clavate; spikelets erect or nodding, 5–6 lin. long, straw-coloured or purplish; glumes linear-lanceolate, acuminate, 3-nerved, thin, the lower slightly shorter and broader; valve cylindric, subemarginate, scarcely 2 lin. long, purplish, smooth; callus almost 1/2 lin. long; awn disarticulating from the valve, stipitate, foot twisted 2 1/2–3 1/2 lin. long, plumose below the knee, middle bristle plumose all along or naked below, 8–10 lin. long, side-bristles very fine, shorter, glabrous; pale truncate 1/2 lin. long; lodicules 1/2 lin. long, few-nerved; anthers 2 lin. long; grain oblong-cylindric, 1 lin. long, whitish, finely grooved. null
