perennial; culms erect or geniculately ascending from a short rhizome, stout in tall specimens, 1 1/2–6 ft. long, glabrous or hirsute with tubercle-based hairs, 4–6-or sometimes many-noded, upper internodes exserted; leaves glabrous or hirsute with fine tubercle-based hairs; sheaths rather tight, terete, striate; ligule a narrow, fimbriate rim; blades linear to sublanceolate, acute to acuminate, 2–15 in. by 3–8 lin., usually flat, firm, light green, margins cartilaginous, spinulous; false spikes solitary, or more usually 2–8 on a slender triquetrous scabrid or rarely almost smooth, and often hairy, common axis, distant, often curved and more or less spreading, rather stout, 2–6 in. long; rhachis slender, linear, dorsally keeled, scabrid and more or less fringed with tubercle-based hairs, villous at the base, internodes 1 1/2–2 1/2 lin. long; pedicels solitary, alternate from near the edges, very short, stout; spikelets usually 1-ranked, contiguous, ellipsoid, obtuse, turgid, about 2 1/2 lin. long, pallid with purple tips, glabrous; lower glume membranous, very broad, clasping, obtuse, 1–1 1/4 lin. long, 7–11-nerved, often purple; upper firmly membranous, oblong, very concave, 2–2 1/2 lin. long, 7–9-nerved, nerves anastomosing above; lower floret ♂; valve similar to the upper glume, 5-nerved; pale broad, elliptic, obtuse, 2-keeled; anthers 1 1/2 lin. long; hermaphrodite floret equalling the upper glume, oblong; valve crustaceous with an obscure, callous tip, very finely pitted, 5-nerved, whitish; flaps of pale very broad above the base. null
