Short-lived perennial tussock grass; culms erect or geniculately ascending, up to ± 1 m high. Leaf-blades up to 30 cm long and 8 mm wide; sheaths glabrous or pubescent. Panicle oblong, 10-40 cm long, loose. Spikelets oblong-ovate, 6-12 flowered, 16-40 mm long, strongly laterally compressed, the lemmas closely overlapping and concealing the short intemodes; glumes narrowly lanceolate in side view, the lower 10-15 mm long, a little shorter than the upper, accuminate, the lemmas narrowly lanceolate in side view, the lower 15-20 mm long laterally ,fattened and sharply keeled, herbaceous with hyaline margins, 9-13-nerved, scaberulous on the nerves, minutely 2-toothed with an awn-point up to 3 mm long from between the teeth; palea shorther than the lemma, ciliolate on the keels; anthers 0.3-0.6 mm long.