perennial; culms ascending from a creeping, rooting, often very long and branched, base, many-noded, sheathed throughout; leaves numerous, distichous, imbricate below, sheaths thin, pale, glabrous except the often bearded mouth, the lower at length loose; ligules very short, truncate, with fine hairs from behind; blades linear, acute, 2–4 in. by 1/2–1 1/2 lin., spreading, involute, rarely flat, glabrous; false spikes 2-nate, both peduncled and articulate on the top of the culm, rarely 3-nate, often spreading, rhachis herbaceous, 1/2 lin. broad, margins scabrid; spikelets subsessile, solitary, oblong, acute to acuminate, 1–2 lin. long, dorsally flattened, imbricate and adpressed to the rhachis, glabrous, pale; lower glume 0; upper slightly convex, 5- or 4-nerved (middle-nerve suppressed), side-nerves close, submarginal; lower valve very like the glume, middle-nerve always percurrent, side-nerves 2–3 on each side, submarginal; upper valve distinctly shorter, subcoriaceous, 5-nerved, smooth, pale; pale obscurely auricled; anthers 3/4 lin. long; grain 1/2 lin. long. null
