Tufted perennial with creeping rhizomes; culms 30-100 cm high, usually erect. Leaf-blades flat or slightly inrolled, 9-20 cm long, 2-6(-9) mm wide, glabrous or shortly puberulous on both sides, scabrid above, smooth beneath. Spike (6-) 8-11(-20) cm long, dense or the lower spikelets remote. Spikelets 2-3 (-4) at the nodes, greyish-green or glaucous, sometimes purple-tinged; glumes narrowly lanceolate, 1-nerved, awned, 10-15 mm long (including the awn), ciliate along the margins; lemma lanceolate or elliptic, 8-12 mm long, acute, hairy all over the back, produced at the tip into an awn 1-3 mm long.