Caespitose perennial with woody rootstock; culms up to 60 cm high, erect. Leaf-blades filiform, up to 30 cm long and 2 mm wide. Inflorescence ranging from a dense panicle 10-13 cm long with many spikelets to a few-spiculate raceme 6 cm long. Spikelets 15-25 cm long, 2-5-flowered, wedge-shaped, laterally compressed; glumes similar, elliptic- ,or lanceolate-acuminate, mucronate or lacerate at the tip, 3-9-nerved, 15-25 mm long, the upper sometimes longer than the lower; lowest lemma elliptic, 9-nerved, awned, 6-6.5 mm long, sparsely hairy along the margins, somewhat hairy above the base of the lobes, the lobes acuminate, awned, up to 3.5 mm long; awns of the lobes 6-8 mm long; central awn 22-25 mm long; anthers (3-)4.5-5.5 mm long. Grain obovoid, 2.3 mm long.