Tufted perennial with short rhizomes; culms 10-40 cm high, erect, slender, smooth. Leaf-blades up to 10 cm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, flat or folded, scaberulous above; ligule 2-3.5 mm long, obtuse or truncate. Panicle erect, ovoid, 1.5-6 (-10) cm long, 1-1.5 cm wide, dense, often lobed, usually tinged with purple. Spikelets 4.5-6.5 mm long, the rhachilla prolonged and penicillate; glumes equal, lanceolate, smooth; lemma about three-quarters the length of the glumes, scaberulous, truncate-denticulate at the tip; awn about 1.5 times the length of the lemma, inserted near its base, twisted below and slightly bent; callus hairs not more than half as long as the floret.