Perennial, up to 2–3 ft. high, with a decumbent copiously rooting and apparently early disintegrating base. Culms erect, geniculate (sometimes repeatedly), branched, many-noded, internodes shorter than the sheaths or at length usually more or less exserted from them, terete, striate, glabrous. Leaf-sheaths rather tight, terete, slightly keeled upwards, more or less subherbaceous, prominently striate, slightly and minutely hairy at the nodes and with a transverse dorsal fringe of hairs at the junction with the blade, otherwise quite glabrous and smooth or, rarely, with some stiff minutely tubercle-based hairs; ligule a densely ciliate rim; blades linear-lanceolate from a suddenly constricted and rounded base, very acutely acuminate, 3–5 1/2 in. by 4–6 lin., flat, papery, glabrous and smooth except along the cartilaginous scabrid and on one side markedly crisped margins, midrib not or indistinctly differentiated on the face, very slender but prominent on the back, primary lateral nerves about 4 on each side, mostly faint with equally faint secondary nerves and short transverse veins in the intervals. Panicles terminal, 5–6 in. long, contracted or (temporarily?) wide open, somewhat flexuous, glabrous; common axis very slender, terete and smooth below, angular and scaberulous above, internodes 3/4– 1/2 in. long; primary branches erect or (temporarily?) widely spreading, solitary or here and there 2-nate, up to over 3 in. (lower) or 1 1/2–1 in. (upper) long, mostly divided from the base or the lowest undivided for a distance of 8 (very rarely 2) lin., subflexuous, triquetrous, with scaberulous angles; secondary branches appressed or subappressed to the primary, forming somewhat dense secund or subsecund spiciform racemes. Racemes about 3 (or the lowest sometimes up to over 5) lin. long; rhachis finely filiform, 1/15– 1/20 lin. wide, wavy, compressed, scaberulous, internodes not much over 1/2 lin. long; pedicels very fine, filiform, the longer flexuous, up to 1/2 or sometimes 3/4 lin. long, with minute discoid tips. Spikelets irregularly ranked, those of one rank hardly contiguous, lanceolate, acutely acuminate, dorsally moderately compressed, 1 1/4 lin. long, olive-green, often slightly flushed with lurid purple, particularly upwards, one-tenth to one-twelfth the length of the spikelet, hyaline, nerveless; upper glume 5-nerved with the nerves more prominent upwards. Lower floret reduced to a valve exactly like the upper glume. Upper floret hermaphrodite, elliptic-oblong in outline, obtuse, 7/8 lin. long, pale: valve very thinly papery, loosely and delicately villous, obscurely 5-nerved; valvule similar in substance and hairiness, lateral keels obscure, flexures obtuse; anthers up to 1/4 lin. long. Grain broad-elliptic in outline, 1 lin. by 3/5 lin., pale.
