Caespitose, open-based, perennial tussock with mostly floriferous, erect to nodding shoots; branching extravaginal; cataphylls hairy. Leaf-sheath to 4 cm, finely retrorse-scabrid, and densely short-hairy, terminating in a tuft of hair to 1.5 mm. Ligule to 0.6 mm, ciliate or sometimes glabrous. Leaf-blade to 20 cm × 1 mm diam., inrolled, rigid, ribs few, retrorse prickle-teeth in columns between ribs and some antrorse long hairs abaxially, abundant short hairs and long hairs especially near the margins adaxially; margins with antrorse prickle-teeth or glabrous. Culm to 40 cm, nodes glabrous, internodes pubescent below nodes, glabrous elsewhere. Panicle to 25 cm, subtended by hairy bract to 4 mm or hairs to 3 mm, erect; verticels close-set; branches short, widely spreading; rachis glabrous below, becoming scabrid above, pedicels and branches short stiff hairy. Glumes ± equal, purple fading brown, tapering to hyaline awn-like processes to 2 mm or acuminate, scabrid, short stiff hairs on midnerve, < awn column; lower to 14 mm, 3-nerved, upper to 13 mm, 3-5-nerved. Lemma 4.5 mm, fulvous, with dense, short hairs, usually scabrid above, lobes minute (0.1 mm); coma obscure or of few short hairs; awn to 85 mm, falcate, sometimes also 1-geniculate, column hairy, tightly twisted, to 10 mm, arista to 55 mm, usually intertwined with awns of adjacent florets. Palea internerve hairs long, apex glabrous, erose. Callus to 1.75 mm, hairs to 2.5 mm, white to brown. Lodicules 3; anterior to 1.5 mm, ligulate; posterior to 0.4 mm. Anthers penicillate, to 3.75 mm in chasmogamous flowers, reduced to 1 fertile anther, 0.5-1.5 mm, and 2 sterile in cleistogamous flowers.
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Plants to c. 1 m tall, with shoots mostly extravaginal. Culm nodes 3–5 (–8), ±exserted, glabrous, thickened. Leaves: sheaths tight at first, glabrous to scaberulous; ligule 0.5–2 mm long, truncate, glabrous or sparsely ciliate, membranous; auricles usually thickened and spreading, ciliate at base; blade expanded to inrolled, 1–3 mm wide, moderately to strongly ribbed, scaberulous to pubescent. Inflorescence 15–50 cm long, open or occasionally contracted, usually sparse; spikelets tightly closed (gaping after disarticulation of floret). Glumes subequal to unequal, 10–15 mm long, acute to acuminate. Callus 1–3.5 mm long, sturdy, weakly bent at tip, densely sericeous. Lemma 4–7 mm long, glabrous, slightly granular to smooth, sericeous; coma obscure, of few hairs, 0.4–1 mm long; lobes absent or 2, 0.1–0.4 mm long; awn 45–100 mm long, with column 9–13 mm long, scaberulous or scabrous, and bristle falcate, scabrous. Palea subequal to lemma, acute to obtuse. Lodicules 3, oblong or acute.
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