Tall, erect, coarse, densely tufted perennial tussock with stout culms; branching extravaginal; cataphylls hairy. Leaf-sheath to 10 cm, with abundant long (0.5 mm) hairs from swollen bases, terminating in a tuft of long hairs to 2.5 mm. Ligule to 0.5 mm, conspicuously hair-fringed. Leaf-blade to 30 cm × 1 mm diam., loosely inrolled, stiff, harsh abaxially with dense erect or retrorse ± stiff long (0.5 mm) hairs from swollen bases in columns between ribs, adaxially with abundant short hairs or prickle-teeth; margins with long hairs or prickle-teeth. Collar curved, hair-fringed. Culm to 1 m, nodes and internodes densely retrorsely pilose. Panicle to 35 cm, violet or violet-suffused, narrow, subtended by hairs or hairy bracts; rachis scabrid, branches and pedicels short stiff hairy. Glumes unequal, 3-nerved, scabrid, produced into hyaline awn-like processes to 3 mm, < awn column; lower to 18 mm, upper to 15 mm. Lemma to 8 mm, fulvous, clothed in long white hairs, lobes minute or absent; coma to 3 mm; awn to 50 mm, 1-or weakly 2-geniculate, widely divergent, column twisted and hairy to 15 mm, less twisted for 8 mm, arista to 25 mm. Palea internerve hairs long, apex sparsely hairy. Callus to 2.5 mm, hairs to 3 mm. Lodicules 2, ligulate, to 2 mm. Anthers to 1.5 mm in cleistogamous flowers, to 3.5 mm in chasmogamous flowers, penicillate.
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Plants to c. 1 m tall, not rhizomatous. Culms erect or geniculate at base; nodes c. 3, densely sericeous. Leaves: ligule 0.5–1 mm long, truncate, membranous to thinly coriaceous; auricles thickened, ciliate at base; blade loosely rolled, 2–4 mm wide, glabrous to pubescent, strongly ribbed on adaxial surface. Inflorescence 20–35 cm long, contracted or slightly expanded. Glumes unequal, 15–23 mm long, acuminate. Callus 1.5–2.5 mm long, densely sericeous. Lemma narrowly turbinate, 7–12 mm long, sometimes with 2 lobes 0.1–0.2 mm long, smooth to granular, white-sericeous turning golden at maturity; coma 1–3 mm long, of dense, erect hairs; awn 45–70 mm long, with column 20–25 mm long, 6–10 mm to first bend, pubescent to villous with hairs 0.5–1 mm long, and bristle scabrous. Palea equal to lemma, acute. Lodicules 2, acute or obtuse.
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