culms tufted, suberect or ascending from a usually short (sometimes slender) base, 1/2–1 1/2 ft. long, simple, scabrid, many-noded, internodes enclosed, except the uppermost; leaves somewhat crowded above the base, glabrous, very scabrid, green to glaucous; sheaths rather tight, striate; ligules up to 1 lin. long; blades linear, acute, 1–3 in. by 1 1/2 lin., usually convolute, rather firm and rigid, sometimes almost pungent, strongly striate; panicle linear, secund, 1 1/2–4 in. long; branches erect, 4–1-spiculate, usually as long as the internodes or longer, filiform; pedicels 1/2–2 lin. long, tips thickened, villous; spikelets 5 1/2–7 lin. long, purplish; the florets hidden by long hairs, fertile florets usually 2; glumes unequal, ovate-oblong to oblong, purple, rarely pallid, firmly membranous, the lower broader, acute or subacute, 5-nerved, 3–4 lin. long, the upper acuminate, 7-nerved, 5 1/2–7 lin. long; valves exceeded by the upper glume, the fertile oblong, obtuse, 5 lin. long, scabrid and strongly 7-nerved, hairy all over except at the hyaline tips; hairs very long; body of barren valves clavate, hairy; anthers 3/4–1 lin. long. null
