Perennial; culms 1-2 m. high in coarse tough clumps, ascending or suberect, often decumbent or creeping at the base; sheaths longer than the internodes, glabrous or papillose-pilose, sometimes papillose only, the margins densely silky-ciliate with long soft hairs; ligule a very short obscure firm membrane; blades 15-30 cm. long, 8-15 mm. wide, spreading, tapering to a rather fine involute tip, finely pilose or papillose on the upper surface, the lower surface and margins glabrous; inflorescence dense, flabellate, feathery, composed of 30-50 slender droop-ing racemes 15-30 cm. long, crowded on a short axis; rachis about 0.6 mm. wide, often naked toward the base with a dense tuft of long hairs in the axils; spikelets 2.5-3 mm. long, relatively distant, lanceolate, acuminate, solitary; glume and sterile lemma thin, the glume sparsely pubescent on the back, fringed with pale silky hairs, 5-8 mm. long, the sterile lemma shorter than the glume, glabrous; fruit about 1.9 mm. long, acute, pale, smooth, only slightly indurate.
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