Perennial mat-forming tussock grass; culms 15–63 cm. high, fairly slender, ascending from a prostrate base, rooting and branching at the lower nodes.. Leaf-blades 3–18 cm. long, 3.5–9.5 mm. wide, rather glaucous, acuminate, blades and sheaths usually glabrous; ligule 1–1.5 mm. long.. Inflorescence open to fairly compact, composed of 5–10 spikes on an axis 3.5–11 cm. long; spikes oblong to ovate, 1.2–3.5 cm. long, ascending at first, becoming reflexed.. Spikelets 8–18-flowered, elliptic-oblong to oblong, 6–14 mm. long, pale green with dark green nerves, often tinged with purple; lower glume 1–3-nerved, lanceolate in profile, 1.7–3.5 mm. long, acute and mucronate; upper glume 7–9-nerved, lanceolate-oblong, 3.8–6.8 mm. long, a third to half as long as the spikelet, sharply acuminate; lemmas 3-nerved, elliptic in profile, 3.6–4.7 mm. long, villous on the lower third of the keel and towards the base on the margins, the marginal nerves ± 2/3 as long as the lemma, the tip obtuse to acute, mucronate; palea-keels not or only very narrowly winged, conspicuously scabrid; anthers 1.7–2.4 mm. long.. Grain elliptic-oblong, 1.2 mm. long.
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