Perennial plants 45–95 (–120) cm high, mostly glabrous and smooth on culms and foliage, often pruinose or purple; base not thickened. Culms branched; nodes usually glabrous, rarely bearded. Leaves: sheaths more than half as long as culm internodes; blade to 25 cm long, to 5 mm wide, pilose near ligule, with bladder-like vesicles, scabrous on margins. Panicles contracted and dense, rarely open, 3–8.5 (–14) cm long, 1.5–3 (–5) cm wide. Glumes (3–) 4–5.8 (–7) mm long, muticous or rarely with awnlet to 1.5 mm long, 9–11-nerved, scabrous or rarely smooth, usually hispid or hirsute with tuberclebased hairs between nerves or only near margins (sometimes densely or partly tuberculate only). Florets subequal to glumes (sometimes palea exceeding glumes by c. 1 mm). Lemma (2.8–) 4–5.5 mm long, awned, cartilaginous, 5 (sub 7)-nerved, bisulcate towards apex, hirsute in lower 1/3–1/2 with hairs not exceeding apex, glabrous and smooth above or scaberulous near apex; awn 7–15 (–25) mm long, straight or curved to recurved. Palea 4–5.8 (–7) mm long, long-acuminate into a beak to 1.5 mm long, with beak usually notched or bifid for up to 0.5 mm, indumentum similar to lemma. Caryopsis c. 2 mm long.
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