Tufted perennial with creeping rhizomes; culms 20-150 cm high, erect, rather stout, rough beneath the panicle. Leaf-blades up to 35 cm long, 2.5-10 mm wide, flat or convolute, scabrid above; ligule 4-10 mm long, acute or lacerate. Panicle soon nodding, lanceolate to oblong, 4-40 cm long, lax or dense and spike-like, usually tinged with purple. Spikelets 5-9 mm long, the rhachilla usually not prolonged; glumes unequal, narrowly lanceolate, smooth or scaberulous only on the keel; lemma about half the length of the glumes, smooth, truncate-denticulate at the tip; awn 1-3 mm long, arising within 0.3 mm of the lemma tip and scarcely projecting beyond the glume tips; callus hairs 2-3 times the length of the floret.