Tufted perennial; culms 20–85 cm. high, moderately slender, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades 3–20 cm. long, 2.5–5.5 mm. wide, flat, scabrid, usually with long scattered hairs from both surfaces, sometimes almost glabrous, the tips pointed; ligule 1.5–2.5 mm. long. Inflorescence 7–32 cm. long, ovate to broadly pyramidal, large and open; racemes 8–30, 3–19 cm. long, stiff and straight, divaricately and often horizontally spreading from the main axis, the spikelets distant. Spikelets 4–9-flowered, 5.3–14 mm. long, often purplish; glumes scabrid, lightly keeled, the tips caudate or subulate and tapering into an awn up to 2 mm. long, exceeding the florets or rarely fractionally shorter, the lower linear-lanceolate, 5.3–13.5 mm. long, the upper linear-oblong, 5–11 mm. long; lemmas narrowly elliptic-oblong, 3–5 mm. long, membranous, appressed pilose on the back around the central nerve, white ciliate along the lateral nerves except towards the tip; awn 0.5–1.25 mm. long; palea capitate-pilose; anthers 0.5–0.7 mm. long. Caryopsis narrowly elliptic-oblong, 1.8–2 mm. long.
