Perennial, often forming mats or tussocks; culms 10-150 cm high, ascending, wiry or sometimes almost woody. Leaf blades 3-25 cm long, 2-10 mm wide. Panicle cylindrical to ovoid, 2-12 cm long, 10-26 mm wide, grey, purple or straw-coloured, the rhachis angular and puberulous; involucre elongate, 6-16 mm long; inner bristles greatly exceeding the spikelets, one of them longer and stouter than the rest, at least the longest somewhat flattened at the base, connate only at the base to form a disc 0.5-1.5 mm in diameter (or sometimes connate for up to 0.5 mm above the rim of the disc), sparsely or densely ciliate below, grooved on the face or not, filiform above, flexuous, often wavy, antrorsely scaberulous; outer bristles filiform. Spikelets 2-4 per burr, 2-5.5 mm long, acutely lanceolate; glumes distinct, acute, the lower as long as the spikelet.