A densely tufted perennial with intravaginal innovations. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, up to 4 ft. high and 1 1/2 lin. in diameter at the base, moderately stout below, terete, simple, 2–4-noded, glabrous and smooth. Leaf-sheaths finely striate, loose, as long as or longer than the internodes, pilose to villous at the nodes (at least the lower), the lower pubescent to glabrous, the intermediate and upper usually glabrous and smooth; ligule reduced to a densely ciliate rim up to 1/3 lin. long; blade filiform to narrowly linear, 4–10 in. long, convolute or involute, sometimes becoming unrolled and then up to 1 1/2 lin. wide, straight or slightly flexuous, shortly hairy at the base, the remainder glabrous and smooth. Panicle linear, contracted and dense, 6–9 in. long, up to 1 1/4 in. wide, silky-villous, white, purplish or crimson-purple; rhachis finely striate, minutely scaberulous, finely pubescent at the nodes; branches erect or slightly spreading, solitary, finely filiform, flexuous, like the branches and pedicels pubescent, or almost glabrous; pedicels flexuous, very finely filiform, 1/2–3 lin. long, usually with several silky hairs up to 1/2 lin. long from beneath their tips. Spikelets oblong, 2–2 3/4 lin. long, 1 lin. wide, densely silky-villous with long white purplish or purple spreading or erect hairs. Glumes approximate; lower ovate, obtuse, 1/4 lin. long, hyaline, nerveless, densely villous with hairs up to 3/4 lin. long; upper obliquely lanceolate in profile, gibbous in the lower two-thirds and tapering upwards into a shortly 2-lobed beak with a bristle up to 1 lin. long from the sinus, firmly chartaceous, finely 5-nerved, densely villous from below upwards, with the hairs from minute tubercles, increasing in length to beyond the middle and then forming a fringe up to 2 1/2 lin. long, the remainder glabrous except for the ciliate margins. Lower floret ♂: valve similar to the upper glume but slightly narrower and shorter and sometimes less hairy below the middle, awn up to 2 lin. long; valvule linear, 1 3/4 lin. long, membranous, ciliate above the middle. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valvule narrowly elliptic-oblong when flattened, emarginate, 1 1/2 lin. long, membranous, obscurely 5-nerved, glabrous.
