Perennial; culms slender, 50-110 cm. high, in small dense rather tough tufts, erect from hard, somewhat enlarged, densely woolly bases, simple or sometimes rather freely branching from the lower or middle nodes, glabrous or the lower nodes appressed-pubescent; sheaths longer than the internodes, sparsely to densely papillose-pilose with rather stiff hairs, the upper ones glabrous or nearly so; ligule less than 0.5 mm. long; blades 5-35 cm. long, 3-8 mm. wide, erect to spreading, flat or drying involute toward the tip, from glabrous to puberulent and rather conspicuously papillose-pilose; racemes 1-10, mostly 3-5, erect to arcuate-spreading, rather remote on a slender axis, the lower ones 2.5-10 cm. long, the rachis about 1 mm. wide, densely pilose at the base; spikelets 1.6-1.9 mm. long, obovate-elliptic, paired, crowded, the short pedicels bearing a tuft of stiff golden hairs which exceed the spikelets; glume wanting, the sterile lemma as long as the fruit, glabrous or sparsely pubescent; fruit chestnut-brown, strongly papillose-striate, the margins of the lemma pale and smooth.
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