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Straggling or compactly tufted perennial 200-600 mm high; lower leaf sheaths sometimes fibrous. Leaf blade 20-120 x 0.5-4.0 mm, filiform; ligule 0.5-3.5(6.0) mm long. Inflorescence 50-190 mm long, linear to spike-like, branches adpressed to central axis, usually more than their own length apart and in clusters of 2 to 3, of which one, at least, is very short with spikelets to near base while the other two are long with spikelets aggregated at the ends. Spikelet (2.1)3.0-4.5(-6.0) mm long, 2-5-flowered; lemma glabrous or hairy on nerves basally, sometimes hairy on back with or without a tuft of wool at keel base; palea ciliate on keels; anthers 0.5-1.0 mm long.
Leaf-laminae 2-12 x 0·05-0·25 cm., very narrowly linear, almost subulate, tapering to a fine soft point, usually folded or convolute, erect, somewhat curved, flaccid to somewhat firm, scaberulous along the nerves (more intensively so on the lower surface) or rarely smooth, usually quite glabrous, rarely scattered pilose.
Panicle (2·5)5-19 cm. long, linear or narrowly oblong in outline, almost spike-like, slender, erect, continuous or sometimes interrupted, straight or slightly curved, pale green or often tinged with purple; the branches almost always erect and appressed to the rhachis, scabrous to a varying degree.
Leaf-sheaths slightly compressed, inconspicuously keeled, coarsely striate, loose, somewhat papery, pale-green to straw-coloured, the lowermost ones persistent and often splitting into irregular coarse fibres, smooth, glabrous, or scattered pilose.
Lemma 2-3·2 mm. long (rarely longer), 5-nerved, elliptic, deeply cymbiform, with the apex acute, dorsally glabrous to pubescent, sometimes with a tuft of hair at the base.
Inferior glume 1·7-3·9 mm. long, 1-nerved, narrowly elliptic or elliptic-oblong, with the apex acute; the superior similar in shape but slightly longer, 3-nerved.
Culms 5-75 cm. tall, 2-5-noded, erect or geniculately ascending, branched below or solitary, very slender, wiry, terete, smooth, glabrous.
Spikelets 3-5(6·8) mm. long, 2-5-flowered, elliptic to elliptic-oblong in outline.
A loosely caespitose rather variable perennial.
Strangling or tufted perennial 15–60 cm. high.
Ligule (0·6)1-4(6) mm. long.
Anthers 0·5-1 mm. long.
