Tufted robust perennial 50-250 cm high, with fibrous remains of old leaf-sheaths at the base. Leaf-blades flat or more usually involute, 4-10 mm wide when flattened, glabrous; ligule (13-)2.5-10 mm long. Panicle narrow, ± dense but sometimes loose, 15-50 cm long, the branches usually bare in the lower half. Glumes unequal, elliptic, acute, the lower (3.2-)4-4.5(-6) mm long, 1-nerved, the upper (4.5-)5-6(-8) mm long, 3-nerved; lemma narrowly elliptic, 4.8-5.7 mm long (including callus), loosely hairy, conspicuously 2-toothed at the tip, the teeth 0.5-1.3 mm long; callus conical, blunt, 0.3 mm long. Awn straight or ± geniculate, indistinctly articulated at the base, faintly spirally twisted below, 6-12 mm long, scabrid throughout.