perennial; rhizome very short, the fascicled culms and barren shoots densely clustered, with an almost bulbous thickening at the base; culms erect, slender, simple, 1–2 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, 1-noded at or below the middle; sheaths reversedly villous, the lower and outermost rather firm, open, straw-coloured, glabrescent, the others tighter, glaucous; ligules short, truncate; blades linear, narrow, finely acute, up to 6 in. by 3/4–1 1/2 lin., involute or flat, glaucous, villous or glabrous, strongly nerved; panicle ovate to oblong, open or contracted, very loose, up to 1/2 ft. long; rhachis very slender, smooth; branches usually paired, up to 2 1/2 in. long, spreading or erect, filiform, the lower sparingly branched, smooth; pedicels very unequal, up to 5 lin. long, capillary; spikelets very scattered, oblong, greenish or purplish, 1 1/2–1 3/4 lin. long, quite glabrous and smooth; glumes subequal, oblong, subacute, 5-nerved; empty valves unequal, the lower narrow-oblong, obtuse, 1 lin. long, 3-nerved, the upper obliquely oblong, equalling the upper glume, 5–7-nerved, with 2 orbicular-reniform appendages at the base; fertile valve like the upper empty valve, not appendaged; pale obscurely 2-nerved; lodicules glabrous; stamens 6; anthers 1 lin. long; stigmas brush-like. null
