annual or subperennial (?), tufted; culms geniculate, ascending, often from a procumbent base, slender, 1/2–2 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, simple or branched below, about 3-noded, internodes exserted; sheaths striate, tight, glabrous or scantily hairy, bearded with long hairs at the mouth; ligule a fringe of short hairs; blades linear, tapering to a fine point, 3–6 in. by 1–2 lin., usually involute, somewhat stiff and spreading, glabrous, or with scattered fine long hairs, scaberulous; panicle spike-like, more or less lobed or interrupted, dense to very dense, 2–6 in. long; axis scabrid; branches adpressed, usually all very short or the lowest up to 1 in. long, divided from the base; pedicels very short; spikelets crowded, ovate, strongly compressed, 1 to almost 2 lin. long, loosely 6–12-flowered, pallid, sometimes purplish; rhachilla breaking up; glumes oblong-lanceolate, acute, 2/5 to almost 1/2 lin. long, 1-nerved, keel scabrid; valves oblong in profile, subtruncate and mucronulate, spreading, about 1/2 lin. long, thin, side-nerves prominent, keel scabrid; pales equal to the valves and falling with them, keels of pale very long and rigidly ciliate; anthers 1/5– 1/6 lin. long; grain elongate-ovoid, 1/4 lin. long, brown. null
