Densely caespitose perennial without rhizomes or stolons; culms up to 60 cm tall, erect or ascending, branched or unbranched, glabrous at the nodes, eglandular; basal leaf sheaths glabrous, coriaceous and often without a lamina, terete, eglandular, persistent; ligule a line of hairs; leaf laminas 5–12(17) cm × 0.5–2.5(4) mm, tightly involute, filiform and wiry, scattered pilose above, eglandular.
Panicle 10–16(20) cm long, ovate to broadly elliptic, open and ± lax, the spikelets ± condensed about the primary branches on pedicels 2–4(6) mm long, the primary branches not in whorls, terminating in a fertile spikelet, glabrous in the axils, eglandular.
Caryopsis 0.8–0.9 mm long, ± linear.