perennial; culms rather slender, firm, ascending from an often long prostrate and rooting base, up to 8 ft. long and to 2–4 ft. high, glabrous, many-noded, more or less branched; sheaths rather tight or the lower loose and deciduous, striate, glabrous or finely hairy to hirsute in the upper part, margins ciliate; ligule a ciliate membranous rim; blades obliquely erect or spreading, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, rarely linear, from a rounded auricled or cordate base, acuminate or gradually tapering to an acute point, 3–7 in. by 1/3–1 in., flat, firm, glabrous, smooth or scantily dotted with small hairs on the upper surface, closely nerved and transversely veined near the base when broad, margins cartilaginous, scabrid to spinulous, often fimbriate at the base; panicle erect or slightly nodding, more or less contracted, lax, 4–8 in. long; axis slender, angular, glabrous or pubescent, particularly at the nodes, angles smooth or scabrid; branches 4–8, rarely more, usually solitary, distant, suberect, 1–5 in. long, simple or shortly and sparingly branched from the base or near it, triangular, very slender to filiform, minutely tomentose at the base, internodes 2–8 lin. long; lower pedicels 2-nate, unequal, upper solitary, the longer 1 1/2–6 lin. long, triangular, scabrid; spikelets oblong-ellipsoid, 2–3 lin. long, turgid, glabrous, smooth, light green, usually obscurely nerved; glumes oblong, rather firm, subcarinate above, with callous, laterally compressed tips, lower shorter by 1/3 or less, 3-nerved, upper equalling the spikelet, 5-nerved; lower floret ♂; valve very similar to the upper glume; pale equal, acute; hermaphrodite floret equalling the ♂ floret, oblong; valve coriaceous, smooth, shining, straw-coloured or whitish, 5-nerved; pale subauriculate near the base; anthers 1 lin. long. null
