perennial (?) tufted; culms erect or geniculate, very stout, spongy below, about 4 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, many-noded, sheathed all along, or the upper internodes exserted, subsimple; sheaths loose, striate, glabrous; ligules very short, membranous, densely ciliate; blades linear, long tapering to an acute point, up to 1 ft. by 2–4 lin., flat, smooth below, very scabrid above, sometimes with a few fine hairs, midrib whitish; panicle erect or nodding, decompound, narrow or rather open, large, 10–14 in. long; axis slender, sulcate, scabrid, at least upwards; branches subopposite or partly solitary or the lower 3–4-nate at very unequal distances, the longest 6–10 in. long, undivided for 1–2 in. from the base, remotely branched, filiform, subflexuous and, like the very fine branchlets, angular and usually very scabrid; pedicels usually 2-nate, unequal, suberect, the longer up to 2 1/2 lin. long, tips slightly thickened; spikelets oblong to oblong-lanceolate, acute to acuminate, scarcely compressed, 1 1/4 lin. long, greenish; lower glume hyaline, whitish, broadly clasping at the base, truncate, 1/4– 2/5 lin. long, obscurely 3–5-nerved; upper glume thinly membranous below, oblong to oblong-lanceolate, acute to subacuminate, 1 1/4 lin. long, prominently 7–9-nerved; lower floret barren; valve like the upper glume; pale oblong, subacute, 2-keeled, 1 lin. long; hermaphrodite floret narrowly oblong, acute up to 1 lin. long, smooth, shining, yellowish; valve subcoriaceous, 7-nerved; anthers 1/2 lin. long; grain over 1/2 lin. long, white. null
