Perennial from a short premorse rhizome with extravaginal innovations covered in the bud-state with whitish- or yellowish-tomentose thin cataphylls, the buds ovoid, plump, obtuse. Culms ascending from a geniculate and occasionally rooting base, rarely erect, rather stout, up to over 3 (to 7 according to L. Scott) ft. high, glabrous or loosely hirsute below the nodes, simple on sparingly branched below or in tall specimens also higher up with long slender branches, 4- to many-noded, the lowest internodes often compressed. Leaf-sheaths rather tight, pale, striate, more or less loosely hirsute with tubercle-based hairs, or glabrous and smooth except the ciliate outer margins, nearly always densely and spreadingly bearded at the nodes; ligules reduced to a densely long-ciliate rim; blades linear to linear-lanceolate from a broad semiamplexicaul base, long-tapering to a slender point, 6–10 in. by 5–8 lin., flat, more or less flaccid, quite glabrous and smooth except at the rough usually quite eciliate margins, or loosely hirsute, midrib slender, prominent below, primary lateral nerves up to 7 on each side, very slender. Inflorescence of 5–10 (rarely fewer or more) erect or suberect straight or slightly curved or flexuous sessile or subsessile spiciform secund racemes; common axis slender, 2–3 1/2 in. long, angular, subterete below, then adaxially hollowed out or flattened upwards, more or less pubescent. Racemes very dense, 2-seriate, simple, 2–3 1/2 in. long, solitary, rather evenly distributed; rhachis wavy, flat and green on the back, 1/2– 3/4 lin. wide; midrib rather stout, forming on the face an acute keel, flanked by the herbaceous scabrid margins, villous at the base, glabrous upwards, internodes about 1 lin. long; pedicels solitary or the lowest with a rudimentary usually barren secondary pedicel at the base, reduced to short stout stumps, bearing 1–3 long spreading fine hairs below the thickened tips. Spikelets close, subimbricate, elliptic-ovate to elliptic, subulate-acuminate, about 2 lin. long, rarely longer, pale greenish. Glumes somewhat dissimilar, membranous; lower elliptic-oblong, obtuse or subemarginate, 1 1/2 lin. long, flat, quite glabrous like the remainder of the spikelet, except the minutely ciliolate margins, 3-nerved, side-nerves inarching and anastomosing with the midnerve below the apex; upper glume corresponding in size and outline to the spikelet, 5-nerved with few transverse veins above the middle. Lower floret ♂: valve very similar to the upper glume, but flattened on the back, 5-nerved, the side-nerves approximate to the firmer flexure; valvule broad-elliptic, acuminate, slightly shorter than the valve; anthers 3/4 lin. long. Upper floret hermaphrodite, broad to rotundate-elliptic, 1 1/4 lin. long, yellowish; valve transversely rugose towards the margins, otherwise like the valvule minutely granular; mucro 1/2 lin. long. Grain broad-elliptic, dorsally much flattened, greyish.
