perennial; culms tufted, erect or geniculate, 1/2–1 1/2 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, terete or slightly compressed, 2–3-noded, upper internodes finally exserted; leaves crowded near the base; sheaths glabrous or very rarely with scattered fine long spreading hairs, rather firm, striate, the upper scabrid, the lower smooth; ligules truncate, up to 3/4 lin. long; blades linear, shortly tapering to an acute (often subpungent) point, 1–2 1/2 in. by 1 1/2–2 1/2 lin., flat or subulately convolute, glabrous, scabrid all over; panicle 4–6 in. by 4–9 lin. when ripe, straight; rhachis angular, scabrid or hispidulous; branches simple, singly or 2–3 close together, straight, 2–5 in. long, at first erect, at length spreading at right angles, hispidulous, villous at the base; spikelets 3–5-flowered, distant by more than their own length, adpressed, shortly pedicelled, 3 1/2–5 lin. long; rhachilla minutely pilose; glumes lanceolate, subulate-acuminate, scaberulous, 3 1/2–5 lin. long; valves oblong, shortly bilobed, mucronate, up to 2 lin. long, side-nerves rigidly ciliate; pales truncate, finely pubescent on the back, keels scabrid; anthers up to 1/2 lin. long; grain narrowly-oblong, flat, over 1 lin. null
