Bluish grey tufts 25-60 cm, often forming large colonies from long-creeping wiry rhizomes. Leaf-sheath abaxially glabrous, adaxially abundantly finely hairy, subcoriaceous, straw-coloured or often purplish, auricles 0. Ligule to 1 mm, scarious, ciliate, hairy. Leaf-blade (7)-10-30 cm, often involute, or flat and up to 4 mm wide, stiff or ± flexuous, abaxially smooth, adaxially prominently ribbed, ribs minutely densely hairy, long-tapered to fine, acute tip, margins minutely ciliate. Culm 10-35 cm, erect or drooping, internodes glabrous. Spike 4-20 × 1-2 cm, erect or curved, with close-set or distant spikelets; rachis very fragile, glabrous. Spikelets 15-25 mm, oblong, elliptic or wedge-shaped, 3-7-flowered; rachilla prolongation short. Glumes ± equal, 9-20 mm, 7-11-nerved, oblong, obtuse, coriaceous and very tough, asymmetrically keeled, or rounded on back, abaxially glabrous, adaxially clothed in fine hairs, mucronate or blunt, margins membranous. Lemma 10-15 mm, coriaceous, 5-7-nerved, abaxially glabrous and shining, adaxially clothed in fine hairs, apex notched, mucro between 2 short lobes. Palea to 14 mm, ≤ lemma, keels finely ciliate, interkeel with fine hairs towards margins, flanks finely hairy; apex produced, ciliate. Callus short, glabrous, articulation oblique. Rachilla 2 mm, finely hairy. Lodicules to 2 mm, lobed, ciliate, hairy. Anthers 6-7 mm, orange, filaments brown. Gynoecium: ovary 2 mm, turbinate, brown; stigma-styles to 3 mm.
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Plants rhizomatous or caespitose. Culms 66–75 cm high. Leaves non-auriculate; basal leaf sheath margins free; ligule 0.5–1.25 mm long, truncate, hyaline to membranous; blade 26.4–38.5 mm long, 1.5–5 mm wide, flat or involute, adaxially densely scabrous to puberulous, with margins smooth. Spikes to 31 cm long, open, with 9–11 strongly spreading spikelets not imbricate on rachis; peduncle (8–) 11–14 cm long, glabrous; rachis disarticulating at joints so spikelets fall with attached segment, with lateral angles glabrous. Spikelets 19–27 mm long, with (4–) 5 or 6 bisexual florets. Glumes: lower glume narrowly ovate to narrowly elliptic, 13–16 mm long, 2.5–3.25 mm wide, carnose to cartilaginous, asymmetrically slightly keeled towards apex or dorsally flattened, 10–12-nerved. Bisexual florets: lemma narrowly ovate to narrowly elliptic and asymmetrical, 15–19 mm long, 2.5–3 mm wide, obtuse or emarginate; anthers 6–8 mm long.
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