Probably perennial, but base unknown. Culms slender, over 1 ft. high, geniculate, terete, simple, few-noded, glabrous and smooth. Leaf-sheaths longer than the internodes, loose, terete, smooth, glabrous or with a few hairs at the mouth; ligule reduced to a minutely ciliolate rim; blade linear, tapering to a fine point, up to 9 in. long, 1 1/4–2 1/4 lin. wide, flat, firm, smooth or scaberulous on the margins and on the upper surface towards the apex, pilose at the back of the ligule, otherwise quite glabrous. False spike dense, cylindric, 3 1/2 in. long, 2 1/2–3 lin. wide (exclusive of the bristles), tinged with purple; rhachis slender, finely grooved and angled, scaberulous, closely studded with the very minute subpatelliform scars of the deciduous involucres; involucres sessile, spreading; bristles about 20 to each involucre, very slender, free to the base, purplish, straight or flexuous, scaberulous, unequal, one much stouter than the rest and up to 4–8 lin. long, the remainder up to 2 1/2 lin. long. Spikelets solitary, sessile, oblong or lanceolate-oblong, 1 5/6–2 lin. long, glabrous. Glumes ovate, acute or obtuse, thinly membranous; lower 1/2– 1/3 lin. long, nerveless or 1-nerved; upper 1–1 1/5 lin. long, 1–3-nerved. Lower floret barren: valve when flattened ovate-elliptic, abruptly acute or obtuse, mucronate, as long as or more often slightly shorter than the spikelet, membranous, 5-nerved; valvule suppressed or very minute. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve when flattened elliptic-ovate, obtuse, mucronate, as long as the spikelet, membranous, 5-nerved; valvule shorter than the valve, linear-lanceolate, minutely truncate, keels scaberulous upwards. Lodicules very minute. Anthers 1 lin. long, with glabrous tips. Styles connate.
