Tufted perennial. Culms 40-120(-150) cm high, erect, slender. Leaf-blades flat, 8-35 cm long, 2-8.5 mm wide, green, scaberulous above; ligule 1-5 mm long. Panicle loose, 12-40 cm long, erect or nodding, the branches spreading or ascending, the lower 5-12(-15) cm long and with up to 12 spikelets each. Spikelets 3(-4)-flowered, oblong, 9-14(-18) mm long; glumes lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, hyaline on the margins and at the tip, the lower 1-3-nerved, 5-9 mm long, the upper 5-nerved, 6-12 mm long; lemmas subcoriaceous with hyaline margins and tip, the lower 7.5-2.5 mm long, 5-7-nerved, scabrid all over or only on the nerves at the tip, shallowly 2-toothed to deeply bifid at the tip, the lobes sometimes acuminate or with short awn-points; awn from just above the middle, geniculate, 10-18 mm long.