Perennial, about 2 1/2 ft. high, compactly cæspitose on a short oblique rhizome with intravaginal innovations. Culms slender, wiry, erect and simple, up to 1/2 ft., more or less geniculate and branched, terete or slightly compressed, glabrous or sometimes sparingly and minutely hairy below the nodes. Leaf-sheaths tight, terete or slightly compressed, very firm and hard, striate, the basal up to over 3 in. long, hairy, long-persistent and coating the innovations and flowering culms, the others glabrous; ligules a narrow ciliolate rim; blades narrowly linear, convolute, very wiry, up to over 1 ft. long, 1 lin. wide when flattened out, 1/2 lin. in diam. in the convolute state, pale green, glabrous except for a beard (lower leaves) or some fine pubescence at the base; blade of the uppermost leaves suppressed, the sheath tapering gradually to an acute point. Inflorescences reduced to a solitary terminal upright straight or slightly arching secund spiciform raceme, 3–4 in. long, simple, dense or somewhat loose, 1-seriate, rarely augmented by a second raceme about 1 1/2 in. below the terminal; rhachis semi-terete, flattened upwards, 3/8 lin. wide, scabrid or rigidly ciliate along the angles, otherwise glabrous; internodes 2–3 lin. long; pedicels solitary or 2-nate, the longest not much over 1/2 lin. long, very finely puberulous with discoid tips. Spikelets contiguous or discontiguous, oblong, subobtuse, 2 lin. long, glabrous, pale, sometimes tinged with purple. Glumes unequal, membranous, the lower ovate-oblong, slightly marginate, half as long as the spikelet, 4-nerved; upper corresponding in outline and size to the spikelet or very slightly shorter, 5-nerved with a few obscure cross-veins near the tip. Lower floret ♂, as long as the spikelet: valve resembling the upper glume but with the inner side-nerves far apart and depressed along the back; valvule oblong, subacute, 1 3/4 lin. long, keels narrowly marginate. Upper floret hermaphrodite, broad-oblong, obtuse or obscurely apiculate, as long as the spikelet, pale brown, glossy and smooth; valve and valvule crustaceous; anthers 1 lin. long.