perennial; culms erect or geniculate from a slender rhizome, 2–3 ft. long, terete, glabrous, 4–5-noded, sheathed all along or the upper internodes exserted; leaves glabrous; sheaths rather loose, terete, striate, bases of the lowest persistent, breaking up into fibres; ligule a fringe of fine hairs; blades linear, scarcely narrowed or constricted at the base, long-tapering to a fine point, 4–10 in. by 2–3 lin., more or less glaucous, smooth except in the upper part, margins finely cartilaginous, smooth or scabrid; false spikes adpressed to the slender compressed scabrid axis of a linear usually interrupted erect panicle from 4–6 in. long, compact, 4-ranked, 1/3– 3/4 in. long; rhachis slender, scabrid, slightly wavy, villous at the base: pedicels 2–3-nate, extremely short, tips discoid; spikelets oblong, subacute or cuspidate, 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long, pallid or variegated with purple; glumes very thin; lower broadly ovate, cuspidate, about 1/2 the length of the spikelet, 5-nerved, finely woolly-ciliate on the sides; upper oblong, very concave, tips short, slightly compressed, 5- or (at the tips) 7-nerved, nerves scantily or minutely hispid, margins very shortly woolly; lower floret ♂; valve very like the upper glume; pale subequal to the valve, keels scabrid; anthers 1/2 lin. long; hermaphrodite floret equalling the ♂, elliptic-oblong, shortly acuminate or cuspidate, light straw-coloured, back strongly convex; valve subcoriaceous, 5-nerved; anthers slightly over 1/2 lin. long. null
