Perennial, up to 3 ft. high. Culms geniculately ascending, slender, terete or grooved on one side, tough, simple or usually branched from below, glabrous and smooth or shortly pubescent towards the nodes, many-noded, with the nodes densely pilose, the lower internodes short, up to 1 in. long, the uppermost internode (peduncle) up to 1 ft. long. Leaf-sheaths moderately loose, in the lower part overlapping, finely striate, very sparingly hairy from minute tubercles and shortly pilose near the mouth of the young sheaths, at length glabrous; ligule reduced to a densely ciliate rim with hairs 1/2–1 lin. long; blade linear to linear-lanceolate, finely acute, abruptly contracted at the base, 2–4 in. long, 2–3 1/2 lin. wide, flat, ascending, rigid, glabrous and smooth or obscurely hairy and sometimes tuberculate below, with or without fine rigid hairs from tubercles on the rough margins. Panicle narrow, more or less secund, dense, erect, straight or slightly curved, 2 1/2–5 in. long, 5/12– 3/4 in. wide; rhachis slender, almost smooth; branches erect, solitary, the lowest up to slightly more than 1 in. long, flexuous, divided from the base, asperulous; pedicels very unequal, 1/10– 3/4 lin., asperulous, with several shining white or purplish hairs up to 1 1/4 lin. long from just below their discoid tips. Spikelets oblong, 1 1/2–1 3/4 lin. long, 1/2– 3/4 lin. wide, purplish, long-pilose. Glumes approximate; lower ovate-oblong, obtuse or emarginate, nearly 1/2 lin. long, thinly membranous, nerveless or obscurely 1-nerved, encircled at the base by hairs up to 3/4 lin. long, the remainder glabrous; upper as long as the spikelet, narrowly oblong in profile, very slightly and evenly curved on the back, very shortly and obtusely 2-lobed with the lobes 1/8 lin. long, with a slender awn up to 2 1/2 lin. long from the sinus, chartaceous, 5-nerved with the innermost nerves anastomosing, long pilose from the base to just above the middle, hairs appressed and erect or slightly spreading, white or purplish, exceeding the glabrous tip by 1–1 1/2 lin., margins long ciliate. Lower floret barren: valve similar to the upper glume but slightly shorter, lobes less obtuse, with an awn 2 1/2–5 1/2 lin. long from the sinus; valvule linear, truncate, 1–1 1/4 lin. long, membranous, keels glabrous and minutely scaberulous. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve ovate-oblong when flattened, minutely 2-fid, about 1 lin. long, very thinly chartaceous, minutely ciliolate at the apex, obscurely 3- to sub-5-nerved.
