Caespitose perennial, up to 45 cm high. Leaf-blades filiform, rolled, 3-20 cm long, smooth, pungent, curved or flexuous. Panicle 10-15 cm long, contracted. Spikelets pallid; glumes glabrous, unequal, the lower 16-19 mm long, the upper 13-16 mm long; lemma 3-4 mm long, smooth, gradually passing into the awn; callus 0.5-0.75 mm long, acute; bearded, the hairs increasing in length upward; column of awn 12-16 mm long, glabrous; central branch of the awn 4.5-7 cm long, plumose throughout but with an excurrent naked tip; lateral branches glabrous, up to 30 mm long.