Tall, coarse, dense, erect or slightly decumbent perennial shortly rhizomatous tussock with close-set, white shoots, swollen at base; branching extravaginal; cataphylls numerous. Leaf-sheath to 2 cm, finely scabrid, terminating in a tuft of hairs to 1.5 mm. Ligule to 0.2 mm, ciliate. Leaf-blade to 10 cm × l mm diam., tightly rolled, rigid, abaxially scaberulous with short retrorse prickle-teeth, adaxially papillate and with occasional hairs and prickles, more so near collar; margins antrorsely scabrid. Culm to 50 cm, nodes pubescent, internodes below nodes pubescent, glabrous elsewhere. Panicle to 20 cm, contracted, verticels with many branches; rachis, branches and pedicels short stiff hairy. Glumes unequal, purple-suffused, green below, produced into fine hyaline awn-like processes 1 mm long; lower to 16.5 mm, 3-nerved, glabrous below ± reaching top of awn column, upper to 10 mm, 5-nerved, nerves with short stiff hairs below, becoming scabrid above except at tip. Lemma to 6 mm, 7-nerved, cylindrical, clothed in grey hairs becoming golden brown at maturity, lobes small (0.2 mm) or absent; coma to 2 mm; awn to 40 mm, 2-geniculate, column short hairy, tightly twisted, to 8 mm, loosely twisted to 8 mm above, arista to 25 mm. Palea weakly 2-nerved, internerve hairs few, apex ciliolate. Callus to 1.6 mm, hairs to 2.5 mm. Lodicules 3, ligulate, to 2 mm. Anthers to 2 mm, penicillate.
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Plants to 1.2 m tall, shortly rhizomatous, with shoots conspicuously extravaginal. Culms geniculate or erect; nodes 2–4, exserted. Leaves: ligule 0.3–0.6 mm long, truncate, ciliate, coriaceous, sericeous on abaxial surface; auricles thickened, spreading, tufted basally; blade tightly rolled to expanded, to 7 mm wide, ribbed on adaxial surface, puberulous to glabrous or scaberulous, rarely hirsute basally. Inflorescence belatedly exserted, 10–40 cm long, contracted to loosely open, usually dense; spikelets gaping. Glumes unequal, 9–16 mm long, acuminate. Callus 1.6–3 mm long, fine and straight, sericeous. Lemma cylindrical to narrowly fusiform or slightly turbinate, 5.5–9 mm long, granular, dark brown at maturity, with a sparse indumentum of golden brown hairs at maturity; coma 0.3–1.2 mm long; lobes 1 or 2, 0.1–0.5 mm long; awn 40–70 mm long, with densely pubescent column 18–30 mm long and scaberulous bristle. Palea to 0.7 mm shorter than lemma, acute. Lodicules 3, spathulate or triangular.
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