Untidily tufted perennial, the basal sheaths laterally compressed; culms 30-100 cm high, erect. Leaf-blades flat, 3-30 cm long, 2-8 mm wide, abruptly narrowed at the tip. Racemes 3-10 cm long, mostly long exserted, solitary or aggregated into a scanty false panicle, the awns forming a twisted spire. Homogamous spikelets 3-17 pairs, resembling the pedicelled spikelets. Sessile spikelet 5.5-10 mm long including a ferociously pungent and rufously bearded callus 2-3 mm long; lower glume elliptic-oblong, brown, hispidulous; awn 5-8 cm long, hirtellous. Pedicelled spikelet 5-15 mm long; lower glume green with yellowish membranous margins; the hairiness varying from glabrous to tuberculate-villous; callus 2-3 mm long.