Laxly caespitose perennial arising from a short rhizome clad in scaly white cataphylls; culms up to 60 cm high and 1–2 mm in diameter, slender, weakly ascending or untidily rambling. Leaf sheaths glabrous; leaf laminas 5–10(15) cm × 2–4 mm, usually rather thin, glabrous. False panicle 5–30 cm long, open and scanty, often only with 10–20 raceme-pairs but sometimes denser with more numerous pairs; spatheoles 2–3 mm long, narrowly lanceolate, reddish-brown, glabrous; peduncles 0.9–3 cm long, from half as long as to slightly longer than the spatheole, pilose with yellow or sometimes white hairs above; racemes 1–1.5 cm long, (4)6–7-awned per pair, exserted laterally with or without a sinuous hook in the peduncle, not or tardily deflexed; raceme-bases subequal and up to 0.5 mm long, or rather unequal with the superior up to 1.5 mm long, subterete, typically with a scarious rim up to 0.2 mm long at the summit, or rarely with a short appendage up to 0.5 mm long. Homogamous spikelets 4–5.5 mm long, a single pair at the base of the inferior raceme only, glabrous except for the ciliolate margins. Sessile spikelets 3.5–5 mm long; callus 0.4–0.7 mm long, oblong or sometimes square, broadly rounded at the apex; inferior glume lanceolate, glabrous or white-puberulous; awn 0.7–1.7 cm long, the column white-puberulous. Pedicelled spikelets 4–4.5 mm long, purple, glabrous, awnless or with a short awn-point up to 1.5 mm long; callus scarcely developed; pedicel-tooth obscure.
