perennial; compactly tufted, whole plant glabrous; culms erect, slender, wiry, 3/4–1 1/2 ft. long, 1–2-noded, uppermost internode usually long exserted; leaves crowded near the base; sheaths terete, tight, firm, the lowest persistent; ligule an obscurely ciliolate rim; blades filiform, 1/2 to over 1 ft. long, 3/8– 1/2 lin. thick, terete, acute, canaliculate, wiry, flexuous, very rarely partly flat, strongly nerved and sometimes minutely hairy on the upper surface, smooth; panicle erect, lax, contracted or open, 2–6 in. long; axis filiform like the subcapillary or capillary branches, branchlets and pedicels smooth; branches mostly solitary or irregularly approximate, laxly divided from near the base, the longest 3/4–2 in. long; pedicels solitary or 2-nate, very unequal, the longer 1–4 lin. long, tips subcupular; spikelets turgid, broadly ovate to ellipsoid, obtuse, 1 lin. long, light green, sometimes tinged with purple, glabrous; glumes subequal, subherbaceous, very similar, elliptic, more or less obtuse, 5-nerved; lower floret ♂; valve like the glumes; pale subequal to the valve; anthers 1/2– 5/8 lin. long; hermaphrodite floret ovate, obtuse or subacute, 3/4– 4/5 lin. long, white, smooth; valve coriaceous, faintly 5-nerved. null
