Perennial, tufted or sometimes almost shrubby at the base, with extravaginal and intravaginal innovation shoots. Culms from an oblique rhizome which is often woody and more or less covered with imbricate firm appressedly hirsute and ultimately glabrous cataphylls or their remains, erect, branched from the base, up to 3 ft. high, rather slender, terete, smooth or the lower internodes often slightly rough and more or less hairy, dorsal prophylls at the base of the lower branches long and frequently villous. Leaf-sheaths terete, tight, the lower crowded, long-persistent, glabrous or sparingly ciliate upwards, smooth; ligule reduced to a fringe of hairs; blades linear, long-attenuated to a fine setaceous point, convolute or flat, the lower sometimes up to over 1 ft. long and 3 lin. wide, like the middle and upper which are much shorter and narrower, glaucous, glabrous or with a few tubercle-based hairs towards the ligule, more or less rough particularly along the margin, midrib broad and whitish above, lateral nerves slender, more or less prominent. Racemes erect, up to 4 1/2 in. long and 3 lin. wide, densely villous and more or less fragile; joints linear, 2–2 1/2 lin. long, dorsally much compressed, somewhat convex on the back, almost flat with a keel on the inner face, glabrous, pubescent or densely villous on the back, rather ciliolate along the angles; pedicels narrowly linear, 1 1/2–1 3/4 lin. long, otherwise similar to the joints. Sessile spikelets lanceolate, 3 1/2–4 1/2 lin. long, from a very narrow annuliform callus, bearing dense erect hairs up to 3 lin. long, pale green. Lower glume acuminate, with the acumen 1–2 lin. long and unequally 2-toothed, flat and usually quite glabrous on the back, 2-keeled upwards, densely long-ciliate almost from the base, intracarinal nerves about 4, often anastomosing, slender; upper glume boat-shaped, obliquely lanceolate in profile, acute, membranous, keeled, more or less ciliate above, 5-nerved. Lower floret: valve oblong, subacute, 3-nerved, 2 lin. long, hyaline, glabrous; valvule narrowly oblong, as long as the valve or slightly exceeding it, 2-nerved. Upper floret nearly as long as the lower: valve and valvule as in the lower floret. Anthers 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long. Styles short, widened at the base; stigmas up to 1 1/2 lin. long, laterally exserted. Pedicelled spikelet similar to the sessile, 2 1/2–3 1/2 lin. long, with a glabrous indistinct callus and with both florets ♂ or more or less reduced.
