perennial; culms ascending from a creeping, often rooting and branching long base, many-noded, sheathed throughout; leaves numerous, distichous, imbricate; sheaths compressed, keeled, striate, thin, pale, glabrous except the finely ciliate upper margins, rather loose; ligules membranous, short, truncate; blades linear, acute 2–6 in. by 1–3 lin., spreading, flat, rarely involute, glabrous or scantily hairy towards the base; false spikes usually 2 (rarely 3 or 4), the lateral sessile or subsessile, villous at the base, rhachis herbaceous, 1/2–1 lin. broad, margins scabrid; pedicels very short, stout, scabrid; spikelets solitary, rarely 2-nate, ovate-oblong, acute, 1–1 1/2 lin. long, subimbricate, adpressed to the rhachis, green; lower glume 0 or more or less developed, very small to 1/4 the size of the lower valve, often oblique, membranous, rounded to lanceolate; upper glume convex, usually pubescent, 5- to sub-7-nerved; lower valve usually 3-nerved, rarely with 1–2 additional side-nerves, middle-nerve percurrent; pale minute or 0; upper valve subcoriaceous, 5-nerved, smooth; pale not auricled; anthers 3/4 lin. long. null
