Tufted, sometimes mat-forming perennial; stems wiry, up to 70 cm high, often with fascicles of shoots at the nodes, arching over and rooting to form long looping stolons; leaves stiff and pungent, usually inrolled but sometimes flat, often painfully spiny. Panicle spike-like, smoothly and compactly cylindrical, 15–20 cm long, the branches closely appressed. Spikelets (1.7–)2.2–2.8 mm long; lower glume broadly ovate to lanceolate, 0.5–0.9 mm long; upper glume narrowly ovate to narrowly lanceolate, 2/3 as long to as long as the spikelet; lemma oblong-elliptic, as long as the spikelet; anthers 3, 1–1.5 mm long. Grain ellipsoid, 0.7–1.1 mm long.
