Culms 8–40 cm tall. Basal leaf sheaths papery becoming slightly fibrous; leaf blades 3–15 × 0.1–0.15 cm, adaxial surface scabrid, sparsely pilose, abaxial surface glabrous. Racemes 3–20 cm, variable, straight or flexuose, spikelets loosely erect or diverging from the slender rachis, imbricate by 1/2–3/4 their length. Spikelets 5–9 mm, pale green or tinged gray or purple; florets 4–10, tightly to loosely imbricate; lower glume narrowly lanceolate, asymmetrical, broadened into a prominent lateral tooth on one side, 1.6–2.7 mm, subacute; upper glume narrowly lanceolate-oblong, 3–4.5 mm, apex acuminate or emarginate and mucronate; lemmas elliptic-lanceolate, 2–2.7 mm to sinus, 3-awned with 2 teeth between the awns, central awn 3–8 mm, flexuose, sometimes recurving, teeth variable, acute, acuminate or awnlike, lateral veins extended into 1–3 mm awns; palea keels winged, shortly ciliate. Anther 1, 0.7–1.3 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun–Oct.
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