perennial, tufted; culms erect, slender, 1–2 ft. high, glabrous, smooth, about 2-noded, upper internodes exserted; leaves glabrous except for a more or less distinct beard at the mouth of the sheaths, or scantily beset with very fine stiff hairs; sheaths tight, striate, lower persistent; ligule a fringe of short hairs; blades linear, acute, 3–8 in. by 1–1 1/2 lin., flat or involute, striate, scaberulous towards the tip and along the margins; panicle usually reduced to a raceme or the lowest branches 2–3-spiculate, often scanty, linear, 1–2 in. long; rhachis and branches or pedicels filiform, angular, scabrid, the latter very unequal, 1–9 lin. long; spikelets turgid, ovoid, awnless, 4–6 lin. long, greenish or tinged with purple; florets cleistogamous, imbricate, 5–7, very close, uppermost rudimentary; glumes lanceolate in profile, acute, scarious, often tinged with purple on the sides, smooth glabrous, sub-5- to sub-7-nerved in the lower part, nerves joining and connected by a few transverse veins; valves oblong in profile, minutely 2-toothed, mucronulate from the sinus, broadly rounded on the back, 3 lin. long, rather firm, tips often purplish, otherwise light green with a distinct or obscure submarginal fringe of short hairs below the middle, otherwise glabrous, smooth; callus very short, minutely bearded; pales broad elliptic-oblong, 2 1/4 lin. long, flaps narrow, keels slightly winged, densely and rigidly ciliolate; lodicules 0; anthers ellipsoid, 1/10– 1/8 lin. long; ovary glabrous; styles short, distinct, stigmas very delicate; grain strongly dorsally compressed, ellipsoid, 1 lin. by 2/3 lin. null
