Perennial, with long slender rhizomes. Culms solitary, erect, 15–80 cm tall, 3–5-noded. Leaf sheaths smooth, uppermost sheath inflated; leaf blades gray-green, 3–15 cm, 2–6 mm wide, abaxial surface smooth, adaxial surface scabrid; ligule 1–4 mm. Panicle shortly and broadly cylindrical to ovoid, 1.5–4 cm, yellow-green tinged violet. Spikelets ovate-elliptic, 3.5–5 mm; glumes thinly herbaceous, keels ciliate with 1.5–2 mm silky hairs, lateral veins and flanks silky pilose, margins connate near base, apices subacute, straight or indistinctly divergent; lemma subequaling or slightly shorter than glumes, margins connate in lower 2/5, awned from lower 1/4–1/3, apex puberulous, obliquely truncate; awn exserted 4–8 mm from spikelet, geniculate. Anthers yellow, 2–2.5 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun–Sep.