Tufted perennial with short rhizomes; culms (12-) 20-80 cm high, erect, becoming fibrous at the base. Leaf-blades usually flat, 5-13 cm long, 3-5 (-7.5) mm wide, often short and very broad and rounded at the base; ligule 4-6 mm long. Panicle 6-15 cm long, the branches long and slender, often flexuous. Spikelets 7-10 mm long, 3-4-flowered, tinged with brown or purple; lower glume oblong to broadly elliptic, 1-3-nerved, 1.8-3.2 mm long; upper glume cuneate at the base with rotund-denticulate tip, 3-nerved, 2.2-3.5 mm long; lemmas 3.5-4.7 mm long, denticulately obtuse; palea 0.5-1 mm longer than the lemma; anthers 2.5-3 mm long, purple or brown.