Tufted perennial; culms 13-35 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, smooth. Leaf-blades 2.5-7.5 cm long, 1-2.5 mm wide, smooth or faintly scaberulous above; ligule 1-2 mm long, truncate. Panicle very narrow, interrupted, 5-12 cm long, brownish or tinged with purple; inflated tip of pedicel smooth. Spikelets 2.2-2.7 mm long, breaking up at maturity above the persistent glumes; glumes acute, awnless, rough on the keel (the upper less so than the lower); lemma 1.4-1.8 mm long, truncate, with a fine bent awn 1-2 mm long arising from slightly above the middle; palea minute; anthers 0.5-0.8 (-1.5?) mm long.