Perennial; culms ascending, often matted, up to about 1 m. high. Leaf-blades flat, 5–20 cm. long, 3–11 mm. wide, the blades and sheaths tomentose with hairs which are often sticky and sometimes smelling strongly of linseed oil. Panicle lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 10–30 cm. long, dense, often purplish; pedicels scaberulous (very rarely with a few long hairs). Spikelets narrowly oblong, 1.5–2(–2.4) mm. long, glabrous or sometimes hairy; lower glume sometimes almost suppressed, but usually a little oblong scale 0.2–0.5 mm. long; upper glume straight on the back, prominently 7-nerved, these forming raised ribs, obtusely bilobed, with or without a mucro up to 0.5 mm. long; lower floret barren without a palea, the lemma 5-nerved, these forming ribs, acutely bilobed, with an awn up to 15 mm. long or sometimes awnless; upper lemma as long as the palea. Fig. 124.