Perennial, loosely tufted with stout scaly rhizomes. Culms erect, 60–150 cm tall, 2–5 mm in diam., glabrous or less often tuberculate-hispid or densely pilose, nodes glabrous or bearded. Leaf sheaths usually tuberculate-hispid on margins, often thinly hispid throughout, less often densely pilose or completely glabrous; leaf blades broadly linear, 10–50 cm × (4–)7–15 mm, tuberculate-setose on margins only, or thinly hispid to densely pilose on both surfaces, or glabrous, apex long-acuminate; ligule 0.2–0.7 mm. Panicle contracted, narrowly elliptic-oblong in outline, 8–45 cm; central axis scabrid to setose; branches 5–20 cm, ascending, lower often with branchlets, densely spiculate; pedicels scabrid. Spikelets 3–4.8 mm, plump; glumes glabrous or rarely hispid, scabrid along prominent veins; lower glume 2.5–4 mm, 3(–5)-veined; upper glume 5–7-veined; lower floret subequal to spikelet; upper floret 2.5–3.5 mm, lemma apex acute to shortly mucronate, callus hairs nearly 1/2 length of lemma. Fl. and fr. Jul–Oct. 2n = 28, 34, 36, 56.
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