Glaucous sward-forming perennial with leafy stolons up to 45 cm long; culms erect or ascending, 7-30 cm high, swollen and knotted at the base. Leaf-blades usually convolute, sometimes flat, 0.5-3(5) cm long, 0.4-1.7 mm wide, distichous, stiff, pungent. Panicle spike-like, linear, 1.5-8 cm long, 3-5 mm wide, untidily cylindrical, the branches closely appressed to the rhachis and 2.5-12 mm long. Spikelets 1.4-2.1 mm long; lower glume lanceolate, 0.8-1.4 mm long, three-fifths to four-fifths the length of the spikelet (but variable even in the same panicle), acute; upper glume narrowly ovate-elliptic, three-quarters to as long as the spikelet, acute; lemma as long as the upper glume or slightly longer; anthers 3, 0.8-0.9 mm long. Grain broadly oblong, 0.7-0.9 mm long.