(L.) Sw., Prodr. Veg. Ind. Occ. 26.1788 Perennial, to 60 cm tall; culms +/- erect, rooting at lower nodes. Sheaths flattened, keeled, longer than the internodes, scabrid to glabrous; blades 4-12 cm long, to ca 5 mm wide, scabrid on upper and lower surfaces. Inflorescences terminal, of subdigitate or closely clustered spikes 4-8 cm long; spikelets to ca 3 mm long, with 1 fertile floret and several reduced sterile lemmas in a club-shaped rudiment; glumes scarious with a stout, scabrid keel; fertile floret 2.5-3 mm long, glabrous except at base and apex below awn, the awn 5-10 mm long, antrorsely scabrid; rudiment minute, almost hidden by fertile floret, its awn 4-6 mm long. Fruits oblong, ca 1 mm long. Standley 41125.