Robust, densely caespitose perennial without rhizomes or stolons; culms up to 115 cm tall, erect, unbranched, glabrous at the nodes, eglandular; basal leaf sheaths glabrous, chartaceous, terete, eglandular, eventually decaying into fibres; ligule a line of hairs; leaf laminas 16–20 cm × 1.5–2 mm, linear flat or involute, pilose on both surfaces, eglandular.
Panicle 13–21 cm long, ovate, loose and open, the axis glabrous or pilose, the spikelets evenly distributed on flexuous pedicels 5–8 mm long, the primary branches flexuous, not in whorls, terminating in a fertile spikelet, glabrous in the axils, eglandular.
Caryopsis c. 1.8 mm long, obovate-elliptic, dorsally flattened, concavo-convex.