Plants forming dense hummocks or rings 0.1–0.6 m high and to 5 m wide, stoloniferous. Flowering culms to 1.5 m high, often purple. Leaves: sheath strongly nerved, scaberulous between nerves, glabrous on back, ciliolate on outer margins near top; orifice pubescent; blade straight, horizontal, folded, stiff, 4–7.5 cm long, 0.5–0.7 mm wide, with scabrous pseudopetiole 1–2.5 mm long. Inflorescence a raceme 3–7 cm long, 0.5–1.5 cm wide. Spikelets ±contiguous on axis, linear-oblong or lanceolate, (6–) 11–18 mm long, 3–6 mm wide, loosely or tightly (4–) 7–12-flowered; pedicel 1–2 mm long, compressed; rachilla stout, the upper segments flattened. Glumes unequal (upper glume longer and wider than lower), lanceolate, (3–) 5–8 mm long, acuminate but ultimately blunt at apex, cartilaginous, with 5 thick nerves, glabrous with upper margin scabrous-ciliolate, often purple. Callus 0.3–0.5 mm long, obliquely obtuse, villous. Basal lemma ovate, 5.5–6 mm long, with 3 minute triangular lobes or rarely entire, indurated in lower part and becoming cartilaginous above, with narrow scarious margins, strongly 11–13-nerved, hirsute in the lower half. Palea elliptic, as long as lemma or 0.5–1.3 mm shorter, scaberulous-ciliolate; keels winged, scaberulous, glabrous; wings very narrow, not exposed but extended as teeth at apex. Anthers 2–3.6 mm long.
Grows in red sand dunes and steppe, in coastalhabitats, drainage basins, salt lakes and rocky hilltops.
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