Tufted perennial; culms 15-70 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades flat or convolute, 3-11 cm long, 1-1.5 mm wide, greyish-green, scaberulous above. Panicle 5-20 cm long, contracted at first, eventually spreading, the branches capillary, bare and smooth in the lower part, scabrid above and on the pedicels. Spikelets 3-5 mm long, 2-5-flowered, usually tinged with purple; glumes lanceolate, blunt, the lower 0.5-1.2 mm long, 1-nerved, the upper 1-1.8 mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas 1.5-2 mm long, oblong or obovate, very blunt, glab¬rous, the mid-nerve reaching the minutely serrulate-ciliate tip; palea keels smooth below, sometimes scabrid above; anthers 0.9-1.5 mm long.