Tufted perennial; culms 5-20(-30) cm high, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades flat, folded or convolute, 2-6 cm long, 0.7-2 mm wide, pallid or greyish-green, smooth or faintly scaberulous above. Panicle narrow, 4-9 cm long, the branches bare in the lower part, smooth or faintly scaberulous, ascending at first, spreading (but not deflexed) at maturity. Spikelets 2.5-4 mm long, 2-4(-5)-flowered, green or tinged with purple; glumes ovate, subacute, the lower 0.9-1.5 mm long, 1-nerved, the upper 1.2-2mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas 1.5-2.1 mm long, oblong-ovate, rounded, truncate or subacute at the tip, glabrous (except for some short hairs on the margins), the mid-nerve reaching the tip and sometimes excurrent as a mucro; palea keels smooth or faintly scabrid above; anthers 0.5-0.7 mm long.