Tall, stout, often sprawling, flabellate tussock with numerous coloured cataphylls and extravaginal shoots, and persistent leaves and sheaths. Sheaths to 15 cm, pinkish or purplish, chartaceous, entire, becoming fibrous, keeled, glabrous or with a few long hairs, tuft of hairs at apex to 1 mm. Ligule to 0.7 mm. Lamina to 75 cm × 8 mm, keeled, persistent, glabrous except for some short hairs above ligule and prickle teeth on margins and abaxially at apex. Culms to 1.5 m, internodes glabrous. Inflorescence to 30 cm, clavate, dense and compact, not naked below; rachis smooth below, branches and pedicels densely scabrous and with some long hairs at branch axils. Spikelets of up to 4 distant florets. Glumes to 7 mm, broad, shallowly bifid, sometimes purpled, margins ciliate, prickle teeth adaxially above, < nearest lemma lobes; lower 3-nerved, upper 5-nerved. Lemma to 6 mm; hairs dense on margin, usually fewer or none aside central nerve, rarely reaching sinus, prickle teeth above adaxially and abaxiaUy on nerves; lateral lobes up to 2.5 mm, conspicuously awned adjacent to a small lobe; central awn to 16 mm, reflexed, column absent Palea to 6 mm, interkeel with prickle teeth above. Rachilla to 0.25 mm. Callus to 1.5 mm, hairs to 4 mm. Lodicules to 1 mm. Anthers to 4 mm. Gynoecium: ovary to 1 mm, stigma-styles to 3 mm. Caryopsis to 3 mm.

2n = 42

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Plants 1-2 m tall; leaves ± flat, long, tapering, abaxial sclerenchyma discontinuous; chlorenchyma next to epidermis; silica cells dumbbell shaped; panicle branches bearing spikelets along whole length; spikelets 4-6-flowered; lemma sparsely hairy along middle of back; awn bent at base, without flattened basal part.

Gramen 1-2 m altum; folia ± plana, longa, attenuata, schlerenchymate abaxiali interrupto; chlorenchyma juxta epidermidem; siliceae cellulae halteriformes; paniculae ramuli spiculas per totam longitudinem gerentes; spiculae 4-6 - florae; lemma sparse pilosum per medium dorsum; arista basi geniculata, infra non complanata.