Tufted perennial; culms 8-30cm high, erect, clothed at the base with the remains of old leaf-sheaths. Leaf-blades flat, 2-6cm long, 1-1.5mm wide, abruptly contracted to a blunt tip, scabrid on the margins and both surfaces; ligule trun¬cate, 2-4mm long. Panicle contracted, 2-5cm long; branches short, 2-3 at the nodes, ascending, very scabrid. Spikelets 2-4-flowered, elliptic when young, becoming broadly wedge-shaped, 4-7mm long, tinged or suffused with purple; glumes unequal, oblong-elliptic, 3-nerved, the lower 2.5-3.5mm long, the upper slightly broader, 3-4mm long; lemmas oblong in side-view, 3.2-4.5mm long, obtuse, ciliate on the keel and marginal nerves, silky hairy (often only sparsely so) on the surface between the nerves, usually without wool at the base; palea shorter than the lemma, the keels shortly hairy below, scabrid above; anthers 1.5-2mm long.