Perennial, compactly cæspitose. Culms erect, simple, up to 2 ft. high, slender, surrounded at the base by a dense mass of yellowish matted wool, pierced by the rigid fibres of decayed sheaths, 2–3-noded, glabrous and very smooth. Leaf-sheaths somewhat loose, glabrous and smooth, rarely the lowest of the culms shortly hairy at the nodes; ligules membranous, short, truncate; blades erect, narrowly linear, tapering to a sharp point, 3–6 in. by 1–1 1/2 lin., flat, rigid, glabrous or very finely hairy, margins scaberulous, midrib and primary side-nerves alike, about 7, somewhat stout and more or less prominent. Racemes peduncled, gathered into an oblong panicle which is 5–7 in. long, loose, flexuous, up to more than 2 1/2 in. long, simple or sometimes compound low down with short secondary branchlets; peduncle up to over 1 in. long, filiform, terete, smooth, purplish; rhachis filiform, about 1/8– 3/10 lin. wide, trigonous, slightly scaberulous along the finely marginate angles, internodes 1 1/2 lin. long; pedicels 2-nate or upwards solitary, filiform, angular, scabrid and minutely hispidulous towards the tips, with a subdiscoid tip, up to 1 1/2 lin. long. Spikelets oblong-lanceolate, acute to acuminate, 1 3/4 lin. long, pale, slightly silky. Lower glume 0; upper narrowly lanceolate, slightly gibbous at the base, acute, 3/4 to over 1 lin. long, very thin, very finely sub-5-nerved (the outer lateral nerves short and very close to the inner), stiffly hairy all over, and so densely near the base that the spikelets there appear shortly bearded. Lower floret corresponding in outline and size to the spikelet: valve very thin, finely 7-nerved, lateral nerves approximate, with dense lines of short (1/4– 1/3 lin.) stiff acute appressed hairs between the inner side-nerves and along the margins; valvule and lodicules minute. Upper floret lanceolate-oblong, acutely acuminate, very slightly shorter than the barren floret, whitish, very thinly chartaceous. Anthers almost 1 lin. long.
