perennial; culms branched near the base, over 1 1/2 ft. long, sheathed all along (or the lowest internodes at length naked), firm, smooth and glabrous; leaves quite glabrous, glaucous; sheaths firm, glabrous, finely striate, tight or the uppermost slightly tumid; ligule a fringe of short silky hairs; blades linear, long tapering to a fine or setaceous point, 1/2 to almost 1 ft. by 1–3 lin., firm, rather rigid, and generally convolute, smooth except the cartilaginous scabrid margins; panicle spike-like, slender, cylindric, 5–8 in. by about 3 lin., pallid; rhachis slender, scaberulous like the very short pedicels; involucres of numerous pallid slender scabrid bristles of unequal length, the longer half as long again as the spikelet, one conspicuously stouter and much longer than the rest; spikelets solitary, ovate-oblong, slightly over 1 1/2 lin. long, pallid, or purple at the tips, glabrous; glumes hyaline, lower very minute, nerveless, upper ovate, acuminate, less than 1/2 lin. long, 1-nerved; lower floret ♂; valves very similar, broadly ovate-oblong, suddenly and shortly acuminate or the upper mucronate, 5-nerved; lodicules small, but distinct; anthers not quite 1 lin. long, tips acute, naked; styles connate at the very base. null
