Perennial, forming large tussocks. Culms stiff, up to 40 cm tall, branched below, many-noded, nodes glabrous. Leaf sheaths glabrous or pubescent at junction with blade; leaf blades lanceolate, tough, glaucous, 3–8 × 0.3–1 cm, uppermost much reduced, glabrous, base constricted, margins firm, closely scabrid, apex acute; ligule firm, 2–3 mm. Racemes 2–3, subdigitate, erect, slender, 3–6 cm, brownish or purplish; rachis internodes linear, ciliate along angles, shorter than spikelet. Sessile spikelet 5–6 mm; callus hairs ca. 1 mm; lower glume lanceolate-oblong, papery, 4–7-veined, flat across back but grooved between median veins, keels indistinctly winged and scaberulous near apex, apex subentire; upper glume 3-veined, acute; lower floret with well-developed lemma and palea, lemma margins pilose above middle; upper lemma oblong, ca. 4 mm, bifid to middle or slightly below, outer margins of lobes pilose; awn of upper lemma 0.8–1.2 cm. Pedicelled spikelet laterally compressed, resembling sessile or rudimentary, shortly awned or awnless.
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