Perennial, up to 5 ft. high. Culms moderately stout, simple, tomentose at the very base, with a ring of silky hairs at the insertion of the sheaths and often also with some hairs below it, uppermost internode (peduncle) up to over 1 ft. long, closely and upwards prominently striate, very scabrid on the slender ribs and hairy towards the inflorescence. Leaf-sheaths rather tight, firm, with densely ciliate margins and mostly with scattered deciduous tubercle-based hairs in the upper part, striate, the lower purplish and slightly keeled upwards, the lowermost fugaciously tomentose at the very base; ligule a densely ciliate rim; blade linear from a slightly narrowed base, long-tapering to a slender point, flat, flexuous, up to 1 ft. or more long by 3–7 lin. wide, somewhat glaucous, finely and loosely to densely hairy (with tubercle-based hairs), or glabrous or nearly glabrous on the back, rather rough along the margins upwards, midrib slender, widened and depressed towards the base on the face, bluntly prominent on the back, primary lateral nerves slender, about 1/2 lin. distant at the middle. Inflorescence a dense blunt false spike, rarely interrupted or constricted at intervals, 2–6 in. (rarely to 12 in.) long by 3–4 lin. wide (exclusive of the bristles); axis more or less angular, densely pubescent and here and there with some long hairs; branches very short, puberulous, forming compact clusters of up to 8 mostly perfect spikelets; bristles slender, flexuous, 1 or 2 with each spikelet, unequal, 3–6 and even 8 lin. long, finely scaberulous, pale with purplish tips or purplish almost all along; pedicels reduced to short stumps with discoid tips. Spikelets broadly ovoid-ellipsoid and minutely apiculate, very turgid, rather oblique, up to over 1 1/2 lin. long and up to over 1 lin. wide in profile, very smooth, glabrous, pale with minute tips to violet-purple. Glumes membranous; lower rotundate-ovate, rounded at the top, with or without a pointlet, 5–7-nerved, almost half the length of the spikelet; upper broadly elliptic, blunt, apiculate, 7-nerved with the nerves more marked upwards, very slightly shorter than the upper floret. Lower floret ♂: valve similar to the upper glume, but narrower and as long as the spikelet, 5-nerved; valvule elliptic-oblong, almost as long as the valve; anthers 3/4–1 lin. long, very dark. Upper floret hermaphrodite, very slightly shorter than the lower: valve ovate-oblong, 5/8 lin. wide in back view, pale with a dark purple tip, semi-ovate in profile, delicately punctate or longitudinally striate with a few obscure transverse wrinkles; valvule very narrow as seen between the parallel involute margins of the valve; stigmas blackish-purple.
