Caespitose perennial up to 70 cm tall; culms slender, bulbous at the base; leaf sheaths lanate; leaf lamina convolute, up to 30 cm × 4–6 mm (when expanded), minutely scaberulous above, glabrous below.
Panicle contracted, up to 16 cm long, linear to lanceolate, the branches ascending, ± all in one plane, scaberulous towards their tips, the terminal pedicels up to 15 mm long.