Perennial; culms 60-100 cm. high, slender to rather stout, erect or ascending, branching from the middle nodes, straw-colored or brown, smooth and shining, the nodes densely bearded with golden-yellow hairs; sheaths much shorter than the internodes, keeled but scarcely compressed, densely papillose-hispid with spread-ing hairs; ligule a short ciliate membrane about 0.2 mm. long; blades 8-25 cm. long, 5-12 mm. wide, acuminate, narrowed toward the scarcely rounded base, nearly glabrous to pilose or papillose-pilose, the margins smooth or sometimes papillose-hispid-ciliate; racemes 4-7, stiffly and usually narrowly ascending, crowd-ed on a short rather stout axis, 4-10 cm. long; rachis 1.2-1.5 mm. wide, extending beyond the spikelets, the margins and ridge separating the two rows of spikelets prominently hispid or papillose-hispid with stiff golden-yellow hairs; spikelets about 1.5 mm. long, obtuse, deeply sunken in the cavities of the rachis.
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