perennial (?); culms ascending from a decumbent geniculate base, 1–2 ft. long, slender, glabrous or pubescent, 4- to many-noded, simple or scantily branched above the base; leaves finely hirsute with tubercle-based hairs, rarely glabrescent; sheaths rather lax, bearded at the nodes, ciliate along the outer margin; ligules membranous, very short, fimbriate; blades linear to linear-lanceolate from a broad rounded or subcordate base, acute to acuminate, 2–4 in. by 2–6 lin., flat, flaccid, margins often wavy, scabrid or fimbriate; false spikes 3–12, rather distant on a compressed or angular pubescent, sometimes bristly, common axis, suberect or spreading, secund, 2–4-ranked, 1–2 1/2 in. long; rhachis linear, 1/2– 3/4 lin. broad, flat on the back, with a very prominent midrib on the face, scabrid or spinulously ciliate and often with long fine tubercle-based bristles as well, villous at the base; pedicels solitary, or 2-nate and then unequal, very short, stout, scabrid, pubescent, with 1–3 bristles near the thickened tips; spikelets contiguous or imbricate, elliptic-ovate, acutely acuminate, 2 lin. long, pale; lower glume turned away from the rhachis, elliptic, obtuse, equalling 3/4– 4/5 of the spikelet, subhyaline, 3-nerved, with 1–3 bristles from a central tubercle; upper glume membranous, elliptic-ovate, acutely acuminate, 2 lin. long, 5-nerved, scantily pubescent, sometimes with a few rigid cilia on one side; lower floret ♂; valve like the upper glume, 3–5-nerved, rigidly and adpressedly ciliate on one or on both sides; pale equal, acuminate; anthers 1/2– 3/4 lin. long; hermaphrodite floret broadly elliptic, rounded, 1–1 1/4 lin. long, whitish; valve with a scabrid mucro up to 1/3 lin. long, 5-nerved, finely and transversely rugose; anthers 3/4 lin. long. null
