Tufted perennial; culms 8-50 cm high, erect, puberulous with short reflexed hairs especially below the inflorescence. Leaf-blades 4-10 cm long, 1-3.5 mm wide, flat or somewhat convolute, villous to scaberulous. Panicle ovoid to cylindrical, dense but sometimes interrupted, the axis and branches puberulous, 1.5-7.5 cm long. Spikelets 2(-3)-flowered, 4-7.5 mm long excluding the awns; glumes subequal or unequal, elliptic, acute, the lower 1-3-nerved, 3.5-5 mm long, the upper 4-6.5 mm long; lemma elliptic, 4-5.5 mm long; awn 2.5-6.5 mm long, strongly recurved.