Perennial, with slender creeping rhizomes. Culms scattered, 25–970 cm tall, 1–2 mm in diam. Leaf sheaths keeled, very narrowly winged, wing margin and sometimes veins scabrid, glabrous or sparsely pubescent at junction with blade, lower sheaths purplish; leaf blades flat, thin, 10–26 cm × 2–5 mm, abaxial surface smooth, adaxial surface puberulent, sometimes sparsely pilose, transverse veinlets present; ligule ca. 0.3 mm or almost absent. Panicle lax, 4–15 cm, racemelike, 1-sided, eventually nodding; spikelets 5–15, mostly borne in pairs or singly directly on main axis, lowest branch sometimes bearing 2 or 3 spikelets. Spikelets obovate, 5–8 mm, glumes purple, florets green, fertile florets 2(or 3), terminal sterile lemmas gathered into globular cluster; glumes broadly ovate, subequal, 4–6 mm, margins broadly membranous, 3–7-veined, both obtuse; lemmas broadly elliptic, lowest 5–7 mm, leathery, 7–9-veined, additional intermediate veins in lower part, scaberulous or puberulous, apex obtuse; palea keels ciliolate. Anthers 1–1.5 mm. Fl. May–Jul. 2n = 18.
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