Perennial, up to 2 ft. high, forming large easily disintegrating tufts; innovation-buds small, compressed, ovate in outline with short acute glabrous cataphylls. Culms erect or more or less geniculately ascending, simple or branched below, very slender, wiry below, rooting from the lowest nodes, terete, glabrous, many-noded, nodes exserted (except sometimes the lower). Leaf-sheaths tight, terete, quite glabrous and smooth or ciliate towards the mouth, finely and prominently striate; ligule reduced to a narrow membranous ciliolate rim; blades narrowly linear from an equally wide base, long-attenuated to a sharp point, 2–5 in. by 1–1 1/2 lin., suberect, somewhat rigid, flat or more or less involute, green, quite glabrous except for some long hairs behind the ligule or more or less loosely hairy above or on both sides, midrib very slender, lateral nerves numerous, close, not differentiated, margins smooth or nearly so. Panicle erect, ultimately long-exserted from the uppermost sheath, loose and open, 2 1/2–5 in. by 1–1 1/2 in. or more or less contracted, divided to the third or fourth degree; common axis terete, slender, smooth, lowest internodes 1/2– 3/4 in. long or irregularly longer and shorter; lowest primary branches divided from the base (sometimes the lowest branchlets arrested), forming very unequal fascicles or false whorls, like the following obliquely erect, the longest up to half the length of the panicle, finely filiform, slightly rough or almost smooth; ultimate divisions subcapillary, rather contracted; pedicels usually moderately unequal, the lateral 1/2–1 1/2 lin., the terminal 2 (sometimes 3) lin. long, tips minutely discoid. Spikelets very turgid, ovate- or elliptic-rotundate in outline, obtuse, 3/4 to almost 1 lin. long, pale olive-green with a very marked bronzy lustre, quite glabrous. Glumes thinly membranous, very concave, obtuse, unequal, the lower narrow, half to three-quarters the length of the spikelet, faintly 3-nerved, the upper much broader, semi-elliptic in profile, as long as the spikelet, finely and prominently 5-nerved. Lower floret ♂: valve very similar to the upper glume; valvule slightly shorter; anthers up to 3/4 lin. long. Upper floret hermaphrodite, elliptic in outline, subacute, 1/2 lin. long; valve and valvules thinly papery, minutely verrucose, whitish; anthers 3/8 lin. long.
