Perennial. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, 2–4 ft. long, terete, slender to moderately stout, simple or branched from near the base or towards the middle of the culm, glabrous and smooth or hairy from pale to dark tubercles, many-noded, the lower internodes short, gradually increasing in length upwards, nodes pilose to densely villous. Leaves softly pilose, with the hairs at length dropping, finely and densely tubercled or almost glabrous and smooth; lower sheaths longer than the internodes, loose, frequently exposing the culm, becoming shorter than the internodes upwards; ligule reduced to a ciliate rim with hairs up to 3/4 lin. long; blade linear to linear-lanceolate, narrowed or rounded at the base, long and finely acute, 2 1/2–6 in. long, 2–5 lin. wide, flat, more or less rigid, shortly ciliate and tubercled on the margins. Panicle linear-oblong to oblong, 3–8 in. long, 1/2–1 1/2 in. wide, dense, erect or flexuous, shortly or far exserted, pale to deep purple; rhachis terete, finely striate; branches erect or slightly spreading, paired or solitary; branchlets and pedicels flexuous and capillary, minutely scaberulous, the latter from 1/4 to 2 lin. long, with or without short white or purplish hairs from below their pale slightly thickened discoid tips. Spikelets linear-oblong to oblong, 1 1/4–2 lin. long, long- and silky-pilose, pale or purplish Lower glume ovate-oblong, obtuse, up to 1/3 lin. long, hairy from the base, nerveless, hyaline; upper oblong when flattened, equal in length to the spikelet, 2-lobed with the lobes obtuse to acute and short, with an awn up to 3 lin. long from the sinus or rarely awnless, membranous, hairy all over with long fine spreading hairs up to 1 1/2 lin. long from tubercles, shortly ciliate from the middle upwards, finely 5–7 nerved. Lower floret barren: valve narrowly oblong when flattened, equal in length to the upper glume or slightly shorter, of similar texture and hairiness, 5-nerved, 2-lobed with the lobes acute and one-fourth to one-sixth the length of the valve, with an awn up to 6 lin. long from the sinus; valvule 0 or microscopic. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve elliptic-oblong, 1–1 1/2 lin. long, very obscurely 1–3-nerved, minutely 2-fid, hyaline; valvule of similar shape and texture; anthers 3/4 lin. long.
