Perennials. Culms 40–50 cm high. Leaves hirsute; sheaths overlapping; ligule 0.2–0.3 mm long; blade usually involute, flat and curling with age, stiff, setaceous, firmly pointed. Panicles spiciform, 13–16 cm long, c. 1 cm wide, hirsute or pilose; branches closely appressed to axis, divided, entirely spikelet-bearing, less than 1 cm long. Spikelets shortly pedicellate, ovate or lanceolate, 5.5–8 mm long, 2–3 mm wide, sometimes cleistogamous; rachilla flexuose, thick; florets 13–16, finally loosely overlapping; basal floret sometimes reduced to lemma. Glumes usually ±equal (sometimes upper glume larger), lanceolate or ovate, 1.8–2 mm long, membranous to cartilaginous. Fertile lemmas lanceolate-elliptic, 2–2.3 mm long, acute or acuminate, membranous to cartilaginous, 3-nerved. Palea ±equal to lemma; body elliptic; keels thick, scaberulous; flaps distinctly narrower than body. Stamens 3; anthers 0.5–0.6 mm long. Grain not compressed or laterally compressed, globoid or ovoid-ellipsoid, 0.3–0.5 mm long. Pericarp free on moistening.
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