Compactly tufted perennial; culms 30–95 cm. high, slender, erect or geniculately ascending.. Leaf-blades up to 25 cm. long, 2.5–4.5 mm. wide, flat or the margins involute, scabrid, almost glabrous or with long scattered hairs especially from the lower surface, acuminate; ligule 1.5–2 mm. long.. Inflorescence 8–20 cm. long, linear-elliptic and compact with erect branches to narrowly pyramidal and open with loosely ascending branches; racemes 8–25, 2–8 cm. long, slender, ± straight, the spikelets usually overlapping.. Spikelets 5–8-flowered, 6.7–8.5 mm. long, pale green or purplish; glumes densely scabrid, tapering to a mucro 0.1–0.5 mm. long, slightly shorter than or ± equalling the florets, the lower narrowly lanceolate to narrowly oblong, 5.3–7.2 mm. long, the upper narrowly elliptic-oblong, 5.5–8.2 mm. long; lemmas narrowly oblong, 3.8–4.4 mm. long, thinly membranous, pilose on the back, white ciliate along the lateral nerves in the lower two-thirds; awn 0.6–1.3 mm. long; palea glabrous or rarely pilose in the lower half; anthers 0.6–1.1 mm. long.. Caryopsis narrowly elliptic-oblong, 1.6–2.1 mm. long.. Fig. 82, p. 298.
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