A tufted perennial with intravaginal innovations. Culms erect or slightly geniculate, stout, 2 1/2–4 1/2 ft. high, up to 1 1/2 lin. in diameter, terete, simple or branched, glabrous or smooth, 4–6-noded, uppermost internode up to 3 ft. long. Lower leaf-sheaths loose, up to 6 in. long, softly pilose to glabrescent, frequently villous at the nodes, longer than the internodes, firm, finely striate, the upper tight, softly pubescent to glabrous and smooth; ligule reduced to a densely ciliate rim up to 1/4 lin. long; blade filiform to narrowly linear, up to 1 1/2 ft. long, involute or convolute, sometimes opening and then up to 3 lin. wide, flexuous, firm, glabrous and smooth or shortly hairy at the base. Panicle linear to oblong or ovate in outline, effuse to rather dense, 8–14 in. long (rarely less), 1 1/4–5 in. wide, white or pale purplish, silkily hairy; rhachis slender, finely striate, grooved or flattened on one side, pubescent at the nodes and sometimes in between, minutely scaberulous; branches solitary, divided at the base and loosely upwards, filiform, flexuous, ascending, the lower up to 5 in. long; branchlets and pedicels subcapillary, flexuous, pubescent, the latter 1/2–4 lin. long with glabrous tips or with a few short white hairs from beneath their tips. Spikelets oblong to narrowly elliptic-oblong, 1 3/4–2 1/4 lin. long, 3/4–1 lin. wide, densely pilose with silky white or purplish hairs exceeding the tip by up to 2 lin. Glumes approximate; lower ovate, acute, up to 1/2 lin. long, hyaline, nerveless or faintly 1-nerved, densely pilose and hidden by long hairs from the base; upper obliquely lanceolate in profile, slightly gibbous in the lower two-thirds, acutely or obtusely and very shortly 2-lobed with a slender awn up to 1 1/2 lin. long from the sinus, chartaceous, 5-nerved, sparingly and shortly pilose to glabrescent below, fringed at the middle with a ring of dense erect or spreading hairs up to 2 1/2 lin. long from minute tubercles, glabrous above except for the ciliate margins. Lower floret ♂: valve as long as and similar to the upper glume but frequently glabrous or nearly so below the fringe, awn up to 3 lin. long; valvule linear-lanceolate, 1 1/2 lin. long, membranous, keels long-ciliate above the middle. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve elliptic-oblong when flattened, minutely emarginate, 1–1 1/4 lin. long, obscurely 3–5-nerved, membranous, glabrous.
