Perennial; culms erect, up to 90 cm high. Leaf blades narrowly linear to filiform, flat or folded, up to 50 cm long and 3 mm wide, pale to dark green; basal sheaths glabrous to minutely puberulous. False panicle simple, interrupted, 15-30 cm long; spatheoles narrowly elliptic, greyish-green, 2.5-3.5 (exceptionally up to 7) cm long. Racemes 25-35 mm long, lowermost pedicel not swollen; internodes and pedicels densely ciliate along the margins, glabrous or minutely puberulous on the back. Sessile spikelet narrowly lanceolate, 6-7.5(-8.5) mm long; lower glume shallowly concave in the lower part, flattish above and often trans¬versely wrinkled, narrowly winged on the keels, 2-toothed at the tip; upper lemma deeply bifid, with an awn 15-20 mm long. Chromosome number, 2n=20.