Perennial, 1–2 ft. high, from a creeping branched rhizome whose very numerous and mostly very short internodes are naked or imperfectly covered with the remains of the rather loosely hairy cataphylls. Culms erect or slightly geniculate below, about 6-noded, simple or branched from 1 or 2 of the lower nodes, slender, glabrous, collapsing and grooved when dry. Leaf-sheaths moderately tight, those embracing a branch slipping off the culm, thin, strongly striate, glabrous or sparingly hairy (the uppermost) to densely and softly hirsute, hairs spreading, tubercle-based; ligules membranous, truncate, up to 1 lin. long, glabrous or dorsally pubescent; blades linear-lanceolate from a rounded base, tapering to a fine point, up to 5 in. by 7 lin., the lowest often much shorter, flat, flaccid, more or less loosely pubescent, ultimately glabrescent above, margins narrowly cartilaginous, scabrid, midrib very slender, whitish, nerves very numerous and close, the primary hardly standing out from the rest. Racemes up to 15, sessile on a slender common rhachis (2–4 in. long, terete and smooth below and angular and rough above), the lowest in scanty false whorls or pairs, the others singly, subfastigiate, up to 4 in. long, spreading or oblique, very slender, greenish; rhachis filiform, straight or nearly so, triquetrous, 1/7– 1/5 lin. wide, pale with some very long extremely fine spreading hairs, angles narrowly marginate, scabrid, internodes 2–3 lin. long; pedicels 2-nate, finely filiform, angular, scaberulous, one very short, the other 1–2 lin. long. Spikelets loosely appressed, rather scattered, oblong, acute, about 1 lin. long, pale greenish, apparently quite glabrous. Lower glume a minute ovate membranous scale 1/10– 1/8 lin. long; upper thin, oblong-lanceolate, acute, 3/4 lin. long, 3-nerved, with fine dense lines of hairs (1/7 lin. long) between the nerves and along the margins. Lower floret in outline and size corresponding to the spikelet: valve thin, finely 7-nerved, with fine lines of hairs between the inner side-nerves (of each half) and along the margins, hairs very fine, thin-walled with blunt tips, shorter than those of the upper glume; valvule and lodicules microscopic. Upper floret as long as the spikelet, oblong-lanceolate, acutely subacuminate, thinly chartaceous, margins of valve distant in flower. Anthers 1/2 lin. long.
