Perennial forming tough tussocks. Culms robust, up to 1.5 m tall, scabrid below panicle. Leaf sheaths strongly keeled at base; leaf blades linear, glaucous, up to 30 × 0.2–0.4 cm, sparsely to densely hispid with tubercle-based hairs or glabrous, apex subacute to acuminate; ligule ca. 0.5 mm, a ciliate rim. Panicle open to contracted, 6–25 cm, purplish; branches stiffly ascending to loosely spreading, 3–15 cm, tipped by a single triad or also with 1–4 spikelet pairs below the triad. Sessile spikelet ca. 7 mm; callus subacute, 1.3–1.7 mm, bearded with golden hairs, obliquely attached to branch apex; lower glume narrowly oblong, tuberculate-spinose along inturned flanks, sometimes hispidulous at apex, apex truncate or 2-toothed; upper glume hispid on keel toward apex, awnless, mucronate or with an awn up to 10 mm; upper lemma minutely 2-toothed, awned; awn geniculate, 1.2–3.5 cm, column puberulous. Pedicelled spikelet staminate, 7–11 mm; lower glume with 3.5–7 mm awn. Pedicel 2/3–3/4 length of sessile spikelet, glabrous. Fl. and fr. autumn.
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