Probably annual, but base unknown. Culms erect, moderately stout, branched, grooved on the side facing a branch, more than 3-noded, densely pubescent towards the inflorescence and slightly pubescent below the nodes, the latter with a ring of dense white hairs, otherwise glabrous and smooth. Leaf-sheaths terete, shorter than the internodes, loosely hirsute upwards with stiff spreading tubercle-based hairs or more or less glabrescent or glabrous, but usually densely bearded at the junction with the blade; ligule reduced to a densely ciliate rim with hairs up to 1 1/2 lin. long; blade linear, slightly contracted at the base, up to 1 1/2 ft. or more long and 3/4 in. wide, flat, firm, green, loosely hirsute with short tubercle-based hairs, scabrid on the cartilaginous margins, midrib stout and rounded below. False spike dense, cylindric, 6 in. long, 7 lin. wide (exclusive of the bristles), yellowish-brown, very bristly; rhachis terete, about 3/4 lin. in diameter, densely pubescent, closely beset with the minute stumps of the deciduous involucres; involucres sessile, minutely bearded at the base, at length deflexed; bristles up to 70 to each involucre, very slender, stiff, free to the base, of unequal length, the outer shorter and scaberulous, the inner (5–8) ciliate around the spikelet and scaberulous above, one stouter than the rest, straight or slightly curved and up to 15 lin. long, the remainder varying in length and up to 7 lin. long. Spikelets solitary, minutely pedicelled, lanceolate- or ovate-oblong, slightly gibbous, 2 3/4–3 lin. long, nearly glabrous. Lower glume suppressed or very minute; upper rotundate, very broad, up to 1/3 lin. long, hyaline and nerveless. Lower floret ♂: valve ovate-oblong when flattened, with a broad emarginate or very obtuse tip, mucronulate, as long as the spikelet, firmly membranous, 4–5-nerved, smooth except on the nerves towards the apex; valvule lanceolate, as long as the valve, 2-toothed, sparingly pilose on the middle of the back, keels scaberulous. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve broadly ovate and very obtuse when flattened, mucronate, as long or nearly as long as the spikelet, chartaceous or thinly coriaceous, 5-nerved, very smooth and shining below the prominently nerved tip, rigidly ciliolate except in the lower third; valvule lanceolate, acuminate, with a blunt tip, nearly as long as the valve and similar in texture, glabrous or with a few minute hairs on the flaps near the base. Lodicules 0. Anthers 1 3/4 lin. long, with penicillate tips. Styles connate.
