Stoloniferous perennial; culms 15-40cm high, erect or geniculately ascending from a creeping base, often clothed below by the scarious, straw-coloured remains of old leaf-sheaths. Leaf-blades flat or subsetaceous, 3.5-8 cm long, 1-2.5 mm wide, rounded at the base, scaberulous on the margins and lower surface; ligule truncate, 1.5-3mm long. Panicle effuse, 5-10 cm long, erect or nodding; branches 2-5 at the lower nodes, spreading, flexuous, slender, smooth. Spikelets 2-4-flowered, elliptic at first, becoming broadly wedge-shaped, 4-7mm long, silvery and often suffused with purple; glumes unequal, the lower narrowly lanceolate, subulate in side-view, 2.5-3(-3.7) mm long, 1-nerved, the upper oblong to elliptic or ovate, 3-3.5(-5) mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas oblong or oblong-elliptic in side-view, 3.5-5.5mm long, obtuse, ciliate on the keel and marginal nerves, rarely glabrous, softly hairy or glabrous on the surface between the nerves, with or without wool at the base; palea shorter than the lemma , the keels scabrid for most of their length, but smooth at the extreme base and tip; anthers 2-2.5mm long.