Erect slender perennial; culms 50-120 cm. high, glabrous; sheaths much shorter to longer than the internodes, compressed, keeled, auriculate, glabrous; ligule firm, 1-2 mm. long, fused with the auriculate summit of the sheath; blades linear, attenuate, 2-3 mm. wide, glabrous beneath, scabrous above and on the margins; flowering branches few to several from the upper sheaths, forming a loose inflorescence; racemes paired, rarely solitary, about 3 cm. long, at first partly included, finally exserted on long, slender, somewhat flexuous peduncles 5-10 cm. long; rachis and sterile pedicels thickened above, stiffly ciliate with white hairs; sessile spikelet 6 mm. long, the callus densely bearded with white hairs; first glume narrow, obtuse, deeply sulcate, glabrous; second glume compressed, keeled, with a slender divergent awn about 1 cm. long; awn of fertile lemma 3-4 cm. long, rather stout, brown, hispidulous, twice-geniculate, the lower segments tightly twisted, the upper straight; pedicellate spikelet 5 mm. long, the first glume not sulcate, long-hairy on the margins, with a straight slender awn 2-6 mm. long.
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