Tufted perennial with slender rhizomes.. Culms 25–90 cm. high, erect, clad below in papery leaf-sheaths which form a soft spongy covering, rarely the sheaths tight and the culms wiry and ascending.. Leaf-blades rather short and broad, mostly 8–25 cm. long and 4–10 mm. broad, sometimes narrow and linear, rarely involute, pubescent above and below, rarely glabrous, abruptly narrowed or obtuse at the tip; ligules papery, ± 5 mm. long.. Panicle untidily cylindrical, 5–15 cm. long and 1–1.5 cm. wide, straw-coloured tinged with violet.. Spikelets lanceolate, the awns scarcely protruding; glumes glabrous or obscurely scaberulous, sometimes with a few stiff cilia on the keel; lower glume narrowly ovate, 4–5 mm. long, 1-nerved, acuminate; upper glume lanceolate-oblong, 7–9 mm. long, 3-nerved, the nerves close together, mucronate; sterile lemmas 3.5–5 mm. long, obtusely bilobed, the awn of the upper 5–8 mm. long; fertile lemma 2.5 mm. long, sessile, rarely mucronate; anthers 2–4.5 mm. long.. Fig. 26, p. 78.
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