Perennial from a short rhizome, up to 4 ft. high; cataphylls of the innovations appressedly silky. Culms erect, simple, rather stout at the base, 3–4-noded, internodes much shorter than the sheaths except the uppermost which is long-exserted. Leaf-sheaths rather firm, increasing in length upwards, the basal 1–2 in., the uppermost much over 1 ft. long, the lower keeled upwards, otherwise terete, glabrous except at the silkily bearded nodes; ligule a ciliate rim; blades linear, slightly attenuated or equally wide at the base, more or less tapering to an acute sometimes subcallous point, 3–6 in. by 3–4 lin., flat, somewhat plump, glabrous and smooth except near the tips, margins cartilaginous, midrib slender, raised downwards on the underside, lateral nerves very fine to indistinct, sometimes 4–5 primary nerves standing out from the rest below. Panicle terminal, over 1/2 ft. long, very narrow, slightly flexuous, glabrous; common axis slender, angular, compressed and scaberulous upwards, internodes irregularly long (up to 1 1/2 in.) and short; primary branches erect, solitary, up to over 3 in. long, the longest undivided up to 1/2 and even 2 in. from the base, or with some quite rudimentary spikelets low down, slender, subflexuous, triquetrous with marginate scabrid angles, the lower bearing at the base secondary branches, otherwise like all the upper branches simple; all the branches and branchlets forming dense secund spiciform racemes. Racemes 3/4 to over 1 in. long; rhachis triquetrous, scabrid, often wavy, internodes 1/2–1 lin. long; pedicels very short, somewhat stout with scabrid angles or reduced to mere stumps, with truncate slightly cupular tips. Spikelets imbricate, 2-ranked, lanceolate-oblong, acute, dorsally rather markedly compressed, 2 1/4–2 1/2 lin. long, very pale. Lower glume much wider than high, obtuse, about one-fifteenth the length of the spikelet, hyaline, nerveless; upper glume faintly 5-nerved in transmitted light, otherwise apparently nerveless. Lower floret reduced to a valve exactly like the upper glume. Upper floret hermaphrodite, oblong, obtuse, 2 lin. long, pale; valve papery, delicately hairy, very faintly 5-nerved, with narrowly involute margins; valvule similar in substance, the lateral keels sharply set off from the thinner back, passing on the other side gradually into the blunt inflexed flaps; anthers 1 1/4 lin. long.
