Perennial, up to 3 ft. high, densely tufted with intravaginal innovations; root-fibres stout, densely tomentose. Culms usually erect or shortly ascending, simple or very sparingly branched near the base, about 6- or 7-noded, the lower and intermediate internodes enclosed in their sheaths or only shortly exserted, hairy below the nodes, the uppermost by far the longest, very slender, glabrous. Leaf-sheaths tight, striate, moderately firm, the lowest very short, silkily tomentose, the following rapidly increasing in length, softly hirsute; ligules reduced to a fringe of short hairs; blades linear, long-tapering to a slightly callous point, of the lowest and uppermost leaves very short, the others up to 4 in. by 1 1/2–2 1/2 lin., flat, rigid, pale or glaucous green, softly hirsute all over, margins cartilaginous, minutely wavy or crisped, with very small rather distant spinules, nerves numerous, close, midrib and about 5 (on each side) lateral primary nerves only slightly differentiated below. Inflorescence very narrow, 3–5 in. long, of up to 12 rather distant suberect rarely spreading racemes; common axis filiform, subterete to semiterete, angular, glabrous and almost smooth, terminating with a spikelet. Racemes sessile or the lower on finely filiform peduncles (up to 1 lin. long), simple, 2-seriate, dense, silvery white, 6–4 lin. long; rhachis finely filiform, about 1/10 lin. wide, subtriquetrous, scaberulous, internodes mostly less than 1/2 lin. long; pedicels solitary, all very short with discoid tips and some long fine hairs below them. Spikelets contiguous or subimbricate, ovoid-oblong or elliptic-oblong in outline, turgid, slightly over 1 1/2 lin. long, silvery-silky. Glumes very unequal; lower broad-ovate to rotundate, obtuse, hyaline, 3-nerved, pubescent, about half the length of the spikelet or almost so; upper corresponding to the spikelet in size and outline, very concave, with a transverse fringe of silvery hairs slightly exceeding the delicate shortly acute or cuspidulate tips, pubescent below them, 5-nerved, the nerves quite obscure below the fringe, more distinct (at least the 3 inner) above it. Lower floret ♂: valve resembling the upper glume but more cuspidate, grooved along the middle and there hyaline and glabrous, the bulging sides pubescent, each with a short transverse fringe of hairs corresponding to that of the upper glume; valvule elliptic-oblong, acute; anthers 1/2 lin. long. Upper floret hermaphrodite, elliptic-oblong, acute or apiculate, 1–1 1/4 lin. long, whitish; valve and valvule thinly crustaceous, finely granulate, pubescent along the narrow inflexed margin.
