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Tufted perennial, the basal sheaths usually tomentose below; culms 0.6–2.5 m. high.. Leaf-blades up to 60 cm. long, 4 mm. wide.. False panicle narrow, dense, 20–60 cm. long; spatheoles narrowly lanceolate, 2–3 cm. long, the peduncles a little shorter; racemes 0.5–1.5 cm. long, 2–4-awned per pair, dark purple, deflexed; raceme-bases slightly unequal, the upper 1.5–2 mm. long, flattened or subterete, stiffly yellow setose, the tip produced into a narrowly oblong, purple, lobed appendage 1–2.5 mm. long.. Homogamous pairs 1 at the base of the lower raceme only.. Sessile spikelet 4–6 mm. long, purplish, glabrous; callus 1 mm. long, acute; awn 1–2.5 cm. long.. Pedicelled spikelet muticous or shortly mucronate, the pedicel-tip obtusely triangular.
False panicle 20–60 cm long, narrow, dense; spatheoles 2–3 cm long, narrowly lanceolate, usually appressed-hirsute but sometimes only along the margins; peduncles a little shorter than the spatheoles, copiously barbate all round above with stiff bulbous-based yellow hairs; racemes 0.5–1.5 cm long, 2–4-awned per pair, dark purple, laterally exserted and deflexed; raceme-bases slightly unequal, the superior 1.5–2 mm long, flattened or subterete, barbate with stiff yellow hairs, produced at the apex into a narrowly oblong, purple, irregularly bifid or lobed appendage 1–2.5 mm long, this glabrous, pubescent or even villous.
Sessile spikelets 4–6 mm long; callus c. 1 mm long, acute; inferior glume narrowly linear-oblong, coriaceous, glabrous or rarely hirsute, the midnerve raised between two fine longitudinal grooves; awn 1–2.5 cm long, the column shortly pubescent with white hairs.
Leaf sheaths usually sparsely pilose, sometimes densely villous, rarely glabrous, the basal nearly always tomentose with pale brown hairs below; leaf laminas up to 60 cm × 4 mm, rigid, scabrid along the margins, usually pubescent below.
Pedicelled spikelets 4–6(7) mm long, glabrous, muticous or with a short mucro seldom over 1 mm long; callus scarcely developed; pedicel-tooth obtusely triangular, very obscure.
Densely caespitose perennial; culms up to 250 cm high, erect, glabrous or sometimes villous for a short distance below the nodes.
Homogamous spikelets 4–7 mm long, a single pair at the base of the inferior raceme only, glabrous with scabrid margins, awnless.
Densely tufted, 0·6–1·5 m. high
