A loosely to densely tufted perennial, 1 1/2–3 1/2 ft. high. Culms suberect or geniculately ascending from a short oblique rhizome, slender, terete or more or less grooved or flattened on one side, usually much branched, many-noded, thinly to densely pubescent to shortly silky-pilose except for the glabrous upper internodes. Leaf-sheaths for the greater part overlapping or the upper internodes shortly exserted, moderately loose to tight, pale or reddish, finely striate, the lower and intermediate sparsely to densely pubescent from minute tubercles, the upper glabrous and smooth; ligule reduced to a densely ciliate rim with hairs up to 1/2 lin. long; blade linear to linear-lanceolate from an abruptly contracted base, finely acute, 1–4 in. long, 1 1/2–4 lin. wide, flat or involute towards the tips, spreading, rigid, reddish, purplish or glaucous-green, densely to sparsely pilose, becoming almost glabrous, margins softly to rigidly ciliate from tubercles and scaberulous. Panicle linear to linear-lanceolate, 3–6 1/2 in. long, up to 1 in. wide, more or less secund, contracted, dense, purplish, shortly to long-exserted; rhachis very slender, finely striate, glabrous or pubescent at the nodes; branches usually solitary, up to 1 3/4 in. long, ascending to suberect, glabrous, bearing numerous short flexuous branchlets; pedicels filiform, flexuous, 1/4–1 1/4 lin. long, scaberulous, with several white or crimson-purple hairs up to 1 lin. long from below their tips. Spikelets oblong, elliptic-oblong or obovate-oblong, truncate, 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long, 1/2– 3/4 lin. wide, purplish or crimson-purple, pilose. Glumes very slightly distant; lower oblong, truncate, about 1/3 lin. long, thinly membranous, nerveless, with a tuft of hairs on both margins at the base; upper linear-oblong to narrowly obovate-oblong in profile, evenly curved on the keel, very convex on the margins in the lower two-thirds, obovate-oblong when flattened, 2-lobed with the lobes rotundate and 1/4 lin. long, with a slender awn up to 3 lin. long from the sinus, 5-nerved with the nerves anastomosing below the apex, thinly coriaceous below, thinly chartaceous above, densely pilose on the keel above the middle, hairs 1 1/2 lin. long, margins ciliate in the upper two-thirds, the remainder glabrous and shining. Lower floret ♂: valve similar to the upper glume, but narrower, slightly shorter, thinner and almost straight on the keel, with a marginal tuft of hairs on each side; valvule linear, truncate, 1 lin. long, thinly membranous, keel scaberulous; anthers linear, 1 lin. long, pale brown. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve ovate-elliptic to elliptic-oblong, 2-lobed, 3/4–1 lin. long, thinly chartaceous, glabrous, obscurely 3-nerved. Grain oblong-ellipsoid, about 1/2 lin. long.
