Perennial, tufted, up to over 4 ft. high, with intravaginal innovations. Culms erect or nearly so, simple, 2–3- (4-?) noded, terete, silkily villous close to the inflorescence and slightly rough for some distance below it, otherwise glabrous, lowest internode 1 1/2–6 in. long, the uppermost (peduncle) up to over 2 ft. long. Leaf-sheaths terete, tight, the basal very firm, persistent, at length slipping off the culm and inrolling upwards, 2 1/2–3 1/2 in. long, appressedly pilose to villous all over with long white hairs, at length sometimes subglabrescent, the following mostly glabrous except for the densely ciliate margins and mouth, rarely also more or less hairy all over; ligule reduced to a densely long-ciliate rim; blade linear from a base narrower than the sheath, long-attenuated to a very slender point, 2 1/2 to over 7 in. long by 1 1/2–2 1/2 lin. wide, in the lowest leaves usually spreading, in all rather firm but flexuous, dull green, drying brown, softly hirsute all over or at least on the upper side, sometimes at length more or less glabrescent, margins slightly rough, midrib slender, prominent towards the base below and concave above, lateral nerves very close and slender, the primary hardly differentiated. Inflorescence an erect usually slightly flexuous very dense continuous cylindric false spike, 3–5 in. long by 2–2 1/2 lin. wide (exclusive of the bristles), fulvous to rufo-fulvous; rhachis slender, terete, finely tomentellous with some longer white hairs; branches reduced to sessile involucres supporting clusters of 2 or more often 3 spikelets of which often only one is perfect; bristles up to 12, unequal, up to 2 1/2 lin. long, flexuous, scabrid and fulvous to rufous upwards but whitish towards the base; pedicels reduced to small stumps with minute discoid tips. Spikelets oblong, subacute in back and front view, semi-oblong in profile, 1 lin. long by 1/2 lin. wide or slightly longer, pale. Glumes hyaline, obtuse; lower rotundate-ovate, transversely wrinkled, 1-nerved, one-third to two-fifths the length of the spikelet; the upper like the lower or broadly elliptic, slightly (rarely much) longer, obtuse, 3-nerved. Lower floret barren, reduced to the valve, which is oblong, clasping the upper floret with its hyaline margins, depressed on the back, 5-nerved, with the midrib prominent upwards. Upper floret hermaphrodite, corresponding in shape and size to the spikelet, straw-coloured: valve acute, with a scaberulous tip, like the valvule very delicately longitudinally striate.
