Densely caespitose perennial without rhizomes or stolons; culms up to 65 cm tall, erect or ascending, unbranched, glabrous at the nodes, eglandular; basal leaf sheaths glabrous or thinly pilose, chartaceous, terete, eglandular, persistent; ligule a line of hairs; leaf laminas 4–20 cm × 1–3 mm, linear, folded or involute, rarely flat, glabrous or thinly pilose above, eglandular.
Panicle 10–20 cm long, ovate-oblong or elliptic, open, the spikelets evenly distributed or ± condensed about the primary branches, on pedicels 1.5–5 mm long, the primary branches not in whorls, terminating in a fertile spikelet, glabrous or loosely pilose in the axils, eglandular.
Caryopsis c. 1.2 mm long, narrowly elliptic.