Perennial, 30-150-(200) cm, forming dull green, sometimes bluish green tufts from long-creeping rhizomes. Leaf-sheath glabrous or with ± scattered fine hairs, firmly membranous, light brown to light green. Auricles to 2 mm very fine, membranous. Ligule rim-like, 0.25-0.5 mm, scarious at tip. Leaf-blade 15-40 cm × (2)-3-10 mm, flat, soft to rather stiff, abaxially smooth or sparsely scabrid above, adaxially with slender inconspicuous ribs, usually sparsely long hairy, or glabrous, linear, ± abruptly narrowed to acute tip, margins white, prickle-toothed. Culm 20-150 cm, erect or geniculate below, internodes glabrous. Spike (5)-10-30 × 0.5-1.5 cm, erect, spikelets very close-set or sometimes more distant below; rachis scabrid on margins, otherwise smooth or sometimes abundantly softly hairy. Spikelets 10-20 mm, green or sometimes bluish green, oblong-elliptic or wedge-shaped, 3-8-flowered. Glumes ± equal, 7-12 mm, 5-7-nerved, lanceolate, obtuse or acute, coriaceous, scabrid on midnerve near tip, adaxially with many small white hairs. Lemma 8-13 mm, 5-nerved, coriaceous, rounded to ± keeled above, abaxially glabrous, adaxially clothed in small white hairs, awnless, mucronate or awned to 8 mm. Palea ≤ lemma, keels scabrid, apex entire, ciliate, flank margins wide, membranous ± contiguous, interkeel glabrous, adaxially clothed in short white hairs. Callus 0.2-0.3 mm, shortly bearded. Rachilla to 1.25 mm, shortly hairy. Lodicules to 1.6 mm, shortly ciliate, > ovary. Anthers 3.5-6 mm. Gynoecium: ovary 0.5-0.7 mm; stigma-styles 2.5-3.0 mm. Caryopsis 3.5-5.5 mm; embryo 1-1.25 mm; hilum = caryopsis.