Perennial; culms mostly erect, usually about 1 m tall, glabrous. Sheaths as long as or longer than the internodes; blades 10-27 cm long, 4-12 mm wide, minutely scabrid, the margins scabrous. Inflorescence a panicle of slender racemes 5-12 cm long; rachis scabrid; spikelets 3- or 4-flowered, 2-3 mm long; glumes keeled, the keel scabrid, the second glume slightly longer than the first; lemmas flattened, imbricate, sparsely pilose on the margin, sometimes awned. Fruits oblong-elliptic, brown, ca 0.8 mm long. Stattuck 461.