perennial; rhizome short, præmorse; innovation-buds rather stout, acute, with firm, ovate, striate, ciliate scales; culms 3–12 ft. high, erect, branched, particularly from the upper nodes, or simple below, terete or rarely semiterete in the lower and subtriquetrous in the uppermost internodes, very firm, obscurely striate, glabrous, glaucous, nodes 8 or more, longest internodes 1/2–1 ft. long; sheaths strong, the lower and middle as long as the internodes or shorter, ultimately spreading, the upper longer, tighter, glabrous except the usually ciliate mouth and the sometimes hairy nodes; ligules very short and ciliate or a fringe of hairs; blades lanceolate-linear from a usually long-narrowed base, or petioled, long tapering to a setaceous point, the longest from 1/2–1 1/4 ft. by 3–10 lin., rather firm, glaucous, scabrid above, sometimes shortly and sparingly hairy, margins very rough; racemes on long very slender peduncles, 1 or several from the upper nodes, sometimes very numerous, 1/2–2 in. long; rhachis angular, scabrid; spikelets subimbricate, oblong or lanceolate-oblong, acute, 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long, often purplish, basal bristles 1/2–10 lin. long; glumes reduced to minute rounded or truncate nerveless scaberulous scales, lower 1/6– 1/4, upper 1/4– 1/2 lin. long; lower floret reduced to a valve minutely ciliate below the tip, otherwise scaberulous or almost smooth, firmly membranous, finely 5-nerved, margins obscurely inflexed in the upper third; upper valve similar to the lower, glabrous; pale almost as long as the valve, hyaline, 2-nerved; lodicules broadly cuneiform, fleshy, 1/10 lin. long; anthers 3/4– 7/8 lin. long; grain unknown. null
