Perennial with short rhizome; culms erect or geniculately ascending, stout, 15-90 cm high, densely pubescent below the inflorescence. Leaf-blades up to 30 cm long and 8 mm wide, involute or expanded at the base, rigid, pungent, glabrous or minutely pilose. Panicle cylindrical, exserted, 4.5-16 cm long, 4-8 mm wide. Spikelets oblong or obovate-oblong, 2-3 mm long; glumes linear-oblong to lanceolate-oblong, acute or obtuse, ciliate on the keel, the lower 1.5-2.5 mm long, the upper 2.6-3 mm long; lemma 2.5-3 mm long, ciliate on the keel.