perennial, densely cæspitose; culms erect or geniculate, firm, rather stout, 2–3 ft. long, glabrous, smooth, about 3-noded, upper internodes (sometimes also the lower) exserted; lower sheaths firm, strongly striate, pubescent or glabrous, usually bearded at the mouth, persistent, upper tight, glabrous, smooth; ligule a very minutely ciliolate rim; blades narrow, linear, filiform-convolute, tapering to a fine point, 6–12 in. long, 1 1/2 lin. broad when expanded, rigid, flexuous, glabrous or sparsely hairy particularly towards the base, smooth on the back, scaberulous or smooth on the face, strongly striate; panicle erect or nodding, narrow, linear to lanceolate, contracted, dense, sometimes spike-like, 6–8 in. long; axis filiform, smooth; branches solitary, sometimes 2–3-nate or irregularly approximate, adpressed, lower up to 4 in. long, undivided for 1–1 1/2 in. or like the others divided from near the base; branchlets somewhat distant, adpressed, simple or again divided; lateral pedicels very short; all the divisions finely filiform, angular, smooth or scaberulous; spikelets oblong, 1 1/2–4 lin. long, brownish or purplish, loosely 4–17-flowered; rhachilla persistent; glumes subequal, lanceolate, acute, 1 lin. long, thin, deciduous, keel scabrid; valves somewhat spreading, stiff, lanceolate in profile, acute, 1 lin. long or slightly longer, membranous, side-nerves prominent, like the keels rigidly ciliate, with the cilia tubercle-based (or rarely with the keels glabrous); pales subequal to the valves, keels tubercled, long and rigidly ciliate from the tubercles; anthers over 1/2 lin. long. null