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.