Tall, stout tussock with fracturing sheaths and long, broad, drooping, deciduous leaves which form a dense litter. Leaf-sheath glabrous or internerves or margins hairy, keeled, pale or purpled, fracturing into short segments, apical tuft of hairs to 1 mm. Ligule to 1 mm. Leaf-blade flat or shallowly U-shaped, glaucous, falling with part of sheath, abaxially glabrous but sometimes with some long hairs, adaxially with prickle-teeth or papillae; margin with long hairs below becoming glabrous or infrequently scabrid. Culm to 1.5 m, internodes glabrous or very infrequently long hairy. Inflorescence to 30 cm, spikelets dense on stiff, pulvinate branches. Spikelets of up to 8 purpled florets. Glumes glabrous, acute but sometimes shortly awned, > adjacent lemma lobes; lower to 14 mm, 1-3-nerved, upper to 18 mm, 3-5-7-nerved. Lemma to 6 mm; hairs dense on margin and in internerves, < sinus; lateral lobes to 6 mm including awn to 3 mm often long triangular-acute; central awn to 16 mm from twisting column to 4 mm. Palea to 10 mm. Callus to 1 mm, hairs to 4 mm. Rachilla to 1 mm. Lodicules to 1.5 mm. Gynoecium: ovary to 1 mm; stigma-styles to 3 mm. Caryopsis to 3.5 mm. 2n= 42.
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