Perennial; culms in coarse tufts 30-100 cm. high, simple, erect, glabrous; lower sheaths crowded, firm, reddish, harshly villous toward the summit, smooth and shining toward the base; ligule firm, about 1 mm. long; blades 12-60 cm. long, 3-5 mm. wide, the uppermost reduced, erect or nearly so, densely harshly villous; racemes usually 2, sometimes 1 or 3, erect or ascending, 4-8 cm. long, the rachis 1.8-2.3 mm. wide, the margins irregular, densely villous with rather coarse hairs at the base; spikelets 4.5-6 mm. long, solitary, imbricate; glume and sterile lemma flat, cordate-lanceolate, the sterile lemma narrower and shorter than the glume, sparsely tuberculate-hispid on the back, the thickened margins tuberculate-ciliate with stiff spreading hairs 2-3 mm. long; fruit 4.2-4.5 mm. long, lanceolate, obtuse, the lemma and palea rather thin, the lemma shortly ciliate toward the summit.
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