Tufted perennial; culms 30-45 cm high, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades folded, 5-10 cm long, 1-25 mm wide, slightly glaucous, scaberulous above. Panicle linear or lanceolate, 6-11 cm long, the branches bare in the lower part, scabrid, ascending. Spikelets 5-6 mm long, 2-4-flowered, pallid or tinged with purple; glumes elliptic, blunt, minutely serrulate-ciliate on the margins, the lower 1.5-2.2 mm long, 1-nerved, the upper 2-2.8 mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas 3-3.5 mm long, broadly elliptic-oblong, obtuse, serrulate-ciliate on the margins towards the top, otherwise glabrous, the mid-nerve reaching the tip; palea keels scabrid above, smooth below; anthers 2 mm long.