perennial; culms in dense tufts, simple or branched, 1–3 ft. high, usually very slender; lower sheaths compressed, crowded, more or less flabellate, upper keeled, shorter than the internodes; ligules almost reduced to a fringe of hairs; blades linear, acute, 3–12 in. by 1 1/2–4 lin., folded or flat, rigid, glaucous, glabrous or minutely hairy, or ciliate towards the base; panicle ovate or oblong, erect, 2–4 1/2 in. long, rhachis smooth or scabrid, branches few or many in each whorl, capillary, flexuous, spreading, at length erect; sessile spikelets linear or linear-oblong, 3–3 1/2 lin. long, pale, callus bearded, hairs whitish to reddish; lower glume chartaceous, complicate, linear, glabrous except the keel, which is scabrid or ciliate below the tip, 4-nerved; upper obtuse, entire or submarginate, aristulate, keel scantily ciliate above; lower valve ciliate; upper shorter, awn 7–15 lin. long; pedicelled spikelets lanceolate, about as long as the sessile, glabrous; lower glume 5–7-nerved; upper 3-nerved and like the valves hyaline and ciliate; pedicels about 1/3 the length of the spikelets, subclavate, fulvous or reddish ciliate along the margins. null
