Plants forming dense, pincushion-like hummocks to 0.7 m high and 1.5 m wide. Flowering culms to 1.25 m high (based on limited data). Leaves: sheath woolly all over or near margins; orifice woolly; blade straight, folded, 5–16 cm long, 0.6–1 mm wide, closely nerved on abaxial surface, with pseudopetiole woolly on upper surface. Panicles open, often sparse, 6–17 cm long, 2–5 (–8) cm wide, often only partly exserted from a subtending leaf with reduced blade; axis grooved on one side; branches to 6 cm long, sometimes further divided. Spikelets solitary or paired, ovate or oblong or elliptic, 8–19 mm long, 4–6 mm wide, loosely 4–9-flowered; pedicel 3–25 mm long, filiform. Glumes lanceolate or ovate, 7–12 mm long, with lower glume slightly longer than upper, usually entire, acuminate or sometimes mucronulate, membranous or chartaceous, 1–3 (–5)-nerved, strongly keeled towards tip, hirsute or the lower or both glumes glabrous. Callus minute, blunt, shortly bearded. Basal lemma lanceolate, 6–9 mm long, shortly 2-lobed or emarginate, sometimes mucronulate in sinus, firmly membranous to scarious or coriaceous with hyaline margins, strongly 3-nerved near tip, hirsute in the lower 3/4. Palea nearly as long as lemma, entire or notched, membranous; body glabrous or hirsute in lower part; keels prominent, densely scabrous-papillose except near base; flaps wide, hyaline at margins. Anthers 2–4 mm long.
Grows on slopesand crests of sand ridges and dunes, on flats and swales, sandplains, roadsidesand, and granite outcrops.
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