perennial; culms on a short oblique rhizome, slender, 1–3 ft. high, about 3-noded, simple, rough and pubescent or adpressedly hirsute below the panicle, otherwise glabrous and smooth, internodes mostly exserted, the uppermost often very long; sheaths firm, lower crowded, short, at least on the innovation shoots, persistent, striate, glabrous, or pubescent along the margins and near the mouth; ligule a fringe of short silky hairs; blades very narrow, linear, filiform-convolute, 2–8 in. by 3/4–1 1/2 lin., firm, flexuous, glabrous or hairy towards the base, rough in the upper part; panicles cylindric, very dense, erect or nodding, 2–4 in. by 3–4 lin., pallid or slightly purplish; rhachis slender, scabrid or pubescent like the very short pedicels; involucre of numerous, pallid, slender, scabrid bristles of unequal length, the longer half as long again as the spikelet or longer, one usually longer and stouter than the rest; spikelets solitary, lanceolate, acuminate to subulate-acuminate, 1 3/4–2 1/2 lin. long, glabrous, pallid, tips usually purplish; glumes very small, lower often suppressed, obtuse or acute, hyaline, nerveless or upper 1-nerved; florets equal or the lower which is reduced to an empty valve slightly shorter; valves oblong-lanceolate, subulate-acuminate, 5-nerved or the lower 3-nerved; lodicules subquadrate; anthers about 1 lin. long, tips naked; styles connate at the very base. null
