Perennial, with short scaly rhizomes. Culms slender, stiff, 30–50 cm, many-noded, branching. Leaf sheaths softly pilose on margins; leaf blades 3–8 × 0.1–0.2 cm, pilose with tubercle-based hairs, densely long-pilose at narrowed base, margins scabrid; ligule ca. 1 mm, ciliate. Compound panicle narrow, erect, spathate fascicles arising singly on 1.5–2 cm branches from upper leaf axils; spathes ca. 1.5 cm. Raceme composed of a triad of 1 sessile and 2 pedicelled spikelets above the involucre of 2 homogamous pairs. Homogamous spikelets 4–5 mm, densely hirsute with whitish, tubercle-based soft hairs. Sessile spikelet ca. 4 mm; callus bearded; lower glume dorsally compressed, pallid, puberulous, acute; awn poorly developed, ca. 4 mm. Pedicelled spikelet ca. 5 mm, staminate, densely white-hirsute, hairs ca. 3 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun–Sep.