Tufted, winter dormant, to 1 m, with greenish or glaucous leaves; branching extravaginal. Leaf-sheath straw-coloured, subcoriaceous, scarcely keeled above, glabrous. Ligule 0.5-1 mm, truncate, short-ciliate. Leaf-blade 10-20 cm × 2.5-3.5 mm, smooth or scabrid, keel and ribs prominent; margins minutely scabrid, sometimes a few, long, fine, tubercle-based hairs near ligule, long-tapered to fine, acicular tip. Culm to c. 90 cm, often branched above, nodes hairy, internodes glabrous. Racemes 5-8, very slender, dark reddish purple, paniculately arranged, 2-4 cm, naked below for 1-1.5 cm, short hairs in axils; spikelet pedicels c. 2 mm, margins densely ciliate. Pedicelled spikelet ♂: c. 3 mm, glumes, lower lemma and 3 stamens as in sessile spikelet; or Ø and composed of lower glume only and very reduced upper glume. Sessile spikelet: c. 3 mm surrounded by callus hairs c. 0.5 mm; glumes submembranous, lower = spikelet, 5-7-nerved, elliptic-oblong, obtuse, with hairs on keels and scattered in lower ½, elsewhere glabrous, slightly depressed at centre, upper slightly shorter, lanceolate, acute, finely scabrid on keel near tip and minutely sparsely hairy near margins, elsewhere glabrous; lemma of lower floret ≤ glumes, ± oblong, tip erose; lemma of upper floret narrow at base and topped by a stout brown geniculate 12-15 mm awn; palea 0; stamens 3, anthers c. 1 mm; caryopsis c. 1.3 × 0.5 mm, brownish; embryo c. 0.6 mm; hilum basal, 0.2 mm.