perennial, densely tufted; culms erect, firm, 2–3 ft. high, glabrous, smooth, sheathed all along or 1 of the intermediate internodes exserted; sheaths tight, firm, striate, sometimes very minutely hairy between the striæ, at length glabrescent or quite glabrous, lower close, long, coriaceous, persistent; ligule a fringe of hairs; blades very narrow from the base, filiform, canaliculate or convolute, terete, 1 to more than 2 ft. long, very rigid, erect, straight or subflexuous, adpressedly hairy, at length glabrescent or glabrous below, villous to subvillous on the upper surface, smooth; panicle linear to linear-oblong, contracted, dense, 4–10 in. long, erect, stiff; axis slender, stiff, scaberulous or smooth below; branches mostly 2-nate, unequal, erect, branched from the base or undivided for 3–6 (rarely 9) lin.; branchlets and pedicels unequal, filiform, scabrid, lateral pedicels short; spikelets light straw-coloured, 3 1/2–5 lin. long; glumes lanceolate in profile, acutely acuminate, subhyaline to hyaline, smooth, glabrous, 1-nerved or obscurely 3-nerved at the base; keel smooth or scaberulous; valves oblong in profile, body 1 1/2–2 lin. long, long and densely hairy, all over 7-nerved; lobes ovate to lanceolate, acute, 1/2– 5/8 lin. long, with a fine bristle from the inner angle, 2 1/2–3 lin. long, free or more or less adnate to it; awn 5–8 lin. long, kneed at 1/3 way up, twisted below; callus short, minutely hairy; pales equalling the body of the valve, entire or subentire, scantily pubescent, ciliolate above; anthers 1–1 1/2 lin. long; grain 1 1/4 lin. long. null
