Tufted perennial, sometimes with short rhizomes, culms 25-110 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, slender to rather stout. Leaf-blades folded-setaceous, up to 40 cm long, smooth on the lower (outer) surface, glaucous, with 7-9 sclerenchyma strands, 1 on the keel, 1 along each margin and 1 beneath (and often united with) each of the lateral nerves, 4-many-sided in section (this visible in a handlens without the need to cut sections); ligule a narrow rim c.0.5mm long. Panicle narrowly lanceolate to ovate, 6-20cm long, lax, the branches ascending or spreading, scabrid. Spikelets 5-6-flowered, 14-17mm long (excluding the awns); lower glume 3.5-5.5mm long, 1-nerved; upper glume 5-8 mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas narrowly oblong-elliptic in side-view, 6-8mm long, with an awn (3.5-) 5-7mm long; palea scabrid along the keels; anthers 2.5-3.5mm long, ovary densely hairy at the tip.