annual, tufted; culms geniculate, ascending or suberect, very slender, 1/2–1 1/2 ft. high, glabrous, smooth, 2–3-noded, uppermost internode usually occupying more than 1/2 of the culm, long exserted; sheaths somewhat loose, glabrous, smooth; ligules extremely short; blades linear tapering to a very acute point, 1 to more than 6 in. by 1/2–1 lin., flat or involute or convolute when dry, flaccid to subrigid, finely and prominently few-nerved, scabrid to puberulous on the upper surface, otherwise glabrous and smooth; panicle erect or nodding and flexuous, very narrow, more or less secund, 1–3 in. long, rarely longer, sometimes reduced to a raceme; rhachis filiform, acutely triquetrous like the branches, scabrid along the angles or smooth below; branches fascicled, 2-nate or solitary, racemose or the lowest again divided below, uppermost, or sometimes all reduced to a single spikelet, erect or nodding; lateral pedicels about 1 lin. long, smooth or almost so; spikelets 4–6 lin. long (exclusive of the awns), loosely 4–7-flowered; glumes subulate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, lower 1–2 lin. long, 1-nerved, upper 2–3 1/2 lin. long, strongly 3-nerved; valves lanceolate-linear, acuminate in profile, 2 1/2–4 lin. long, faintly 5-nerved, scaberulous at least above; awn as long as the valve or longer, up to 6 lin. long, very fine; stamen 1; anther 1/6– 1/3 lin. (rarely 1/2 lin.) long; grain about 2–2 1/2 lin. long. null
