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Culms up to 100 cm. tall (usually much less!), 3-to many-noded, erect or geniculately ascending, almost always bulbous-like thickened at the base, simple or more often branched from the lower nodes, often with crowded intra-vaginal innovation-shoots and then suffrutescent in appearance, sometimes woody, finely striate, pubescent or sometimes glabrous, often somewhat viscous with gland-tipped hairs; the lower internodes usually short, the uppermost long exserted and slender.
Tufted perennial 150-900 mm high; knotty rootstock present, stoloniferous; hairy to nearly glabrous, not viscid as S. kalahariensis; culm base swollen. Leaf blade 50-160 x 2-7 mm, tapering gradually to a long fine apex, often blue-green or glaucous. Spikelet 8-15 mm long; glumes usually light green or grey-green; keels of palea with or without a few gland-tipped hairs, then only towards the apex.
Glumes light grey-green or dull green, acute to subobtuse, glabrous or finely pubescent, rarely with a few gland-tipped hairs, smooth or asperulous; the inferior (4.6)5-7.5(10.5) mm. long, (7)9-11(13)-nerved; the superior (6)6.5-9 (rarely-11.5) mm. long, (8) 9-11 (rarely-14)-nerved, always slightly shorter than the spikelet.
Leaf-laminae 5-16 x 0.2-0.7 (rarely more) cm., linear or linear-lanceolate, tapering to a setaceous point, sometimes somewhat curling towards the apex, involute or flat, glaucous, pubescent on both surfaces and sometimes slightly viscous with gland-tipped hairs.
Perennial; up to 0.9 m high; stoloniferous; tufted; hairy to nearly glabrous. Culm bases swollen; clad by hairy cataphylls. Leaf blades 50-160 x 2-7 mm; tapering gradually to a long fine point. Flowers: panicle contracted; 60-120 mm long; spikelets 8-15 mm long.
Panicle 6-12 x 2-4.5 cm., loose to somewhat contracted, ovate, elliptic, elliptic-oblong in outline, erect or rarely drooping; branches spreading to ascending, sometimes appressed to the rhachis; rhachis, branches and pedicels scabrous and often hairy.
Perennial, stoloniferous and tufted, up to 0.9 m high, hairy to nearly glabrous. Leaf blades 50-160 mm long, 2-7 mm wide, tapering gradually to a long fine point. Culm bases swollen, clad by hairy cataphylls. Spikelets 8-15 mm long.
Leaf-sheaths tight when young, later loose and slipping off the culm; the lowermost scale-like, subcoriaceous, densely packed and often sericeous or villous.
Palea 4.25-5.75 mm. long, usually with a few gland-tipped hairs along the keels towards the apex or sometimes without glands.
Spikelets up to 1.5 cm. long, pedicelled to subsessile, obovate to obovate-oblong in lateral view, sericeous to villous.
Perennial, with a short creeping rhizome, often with long surface stolons.
Lowest lemma (8.5)9.5-14(-18) mm. long; awns (4.5) 5.75-8(13) mm. long.
Caespitose or almost suffrutescent perennial
Caryopsis c. 1.5 mm. long, yellowish-brown.
Anthers (2)2.5-3.5(4) mm. long.
Softly pilose all over.
