Perennial. Culms ascending from a prostrate base, up to 3 ft. or more long, very slender, terete, simple or branched, many-noded, minutely pubescent. Leaf-sheaths much shorter than the internodes, striate, sparsely hairy from minute tubercles or glabrescent, pubescent at the nodes, mostly 4–10 lin. long; ligule a densely ciliate rim; blade lanceolate to narrowly ovate, rounded at the base, tapering to a hard rigid point, 1/2–1 1/2 in. long, up to 6 lin. wide, flat, firm, loosely pilose or glabrescent, with whitish cartilaginous and scaberulous margins. Panicle elliptic to oblong, loose, or contracted and dense, 3–5 1/2 in. long, about 1–1 1/2 in. wide; rhachis very slender, asperulous; branches capillary, flexuous, paired or semi-verticillate, asperulous, up to 1 1/2 in. long; pedicels 1/2–4 lin. long, with a few stiff white hairs towards their tips. Spikelets lanceolate and acuminate, or oblong and gaping, 2–2 1/2 lin. long, pale brown. Glumes thinly chartaceous, loosely hairy with spreading rigid white hairs from pale brown tubercles and with minute hairs between them; lower narrowly ovate to ovate, acute, 1–1 1/2 lin. long; upper lanceolate, acute, as long as the spikelet. Lower floret ♂: valve similar to the upper glume, but thinner, and with shorter and fewer hairs; valvule linear, obtuse, 1 1/4 lin. long, ciliolate above the middle. Upper floret linear, whitish: callus truncate, bearded; valve about 1–1 1/4 lin. long (entire part), membranous, finely 5-nerved, with the side nerves near the margins, 2-lobed, with the lobes 1/2 lin. long and each gradually tapering into a capillary scaberulous bristle up to 2 1/4 lin. long, minutely pubescent, with a dense tuft of short hairs up to 1/2 lin. long near the margins below each lobe; awn 5–7 lin. long; column 1 1/2–2 lin. long, brown; bristle whitish; valvule truncate, 1 lin. long, thinly membranous. Anthers 1/2– 3/4 lin. long.
