perennial, densely tufted; culms fascicled, often from a woody base, erect, firm, 2 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, very densely leafy and often closely covered below with the remains of the sheaths, 2–3-noded above, sheathed all along or nearly so; sheaths tight, firm, lower crowded, sometimes subflabellate, cobwebby, woolly or villous along the margins, and often all over in the upper part, otherwise glabrous, smooth and shining, not striate, lower very coriaceous, persistent; ligule a dense fringe of hairs; blades filiform, tapering to a setaceous point, canaliculate, wiry, 1–1 1/2 ft. long, very hard, flexuous, finely striate, glabrous and smooth on the lower, minutely and densely scaberulous on the upper side, margins scabrid; panicle narrow, oblong, 4–6 in. long; axis slender, scaberulous or smooth below; branches mostly 2-nate, unequal, suberect, filiform, usually branched from the base or near it, glabrous; branchlets and pedicels very unequal, subcapillary, minutely scaberulous or almost smooth; spikelets straw-coloured to whitish, 4–5 1/2 lin. long; glumes lanceolate, long and finely acuminate, subhyaline, glabrous, smooth, 1-nerved; valves linear-oblong in profile, body 1 1/2–2 lin. long, long hairy to villous, 7–9-nerved; lobes lanceolate, acute, 3/8– 5/8 lin. long, thin, smooth or almost so, with a fine bristle 2–3 lin. long from the inner angle, adnate to it except at the tips; awn 5 1/2–6 1/2 lin. long, kneed below the middle, twisted; callus short, shortly hairy; pales equalling the valves, 2-toothed, glabrous, smooth; lodicules glabrous; anthers 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long. null
