Perennial up to 85 cm. high, densely or laxly caespitose. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, simple, mostly branched at the base, glabrous, 2-3-noded; nodes barbate (with long spreading hairs). Leaf-sheaths crowded at the base, striate, whitish, glabrous or more or less woolly along the margins, sometimes densely villose, the upper ones tight. Ligule a short-ciliate rim; auricles short-ciliate, those of innovations long-barbate; collar glabrous. Leaf-laminae variable in length, convolute, nearly setaceous to pungent, more or less recurved, scabrous or minutely pubescent or hirtellous above, glabrous and smooth or sparsely pilose beneath. Panicle up to 30 cm. long, usually narrowly contracted but often open and sometimes lax, with a nearly glabrous axis, and with erect, appressed, solitary or usually 2-nate branches. Spikelets linear-oblong, pallid or straw-colored, often with purple spot at the base. Glumes nearly equal, 3-nerved, usually glabrous, obtuse or subacute, subcoriaceous; the inferior 8.5-11 mm. long, the superior 9-12 mm. long. Lemma shorter than the glumes, cylindric, smooth, articulated near the middle; callus 1.5-2.5 mm. long, very acute, long-hairy; column 10-13 mm. long, straight or slightly twisted, filiform; central awn up to 4.5 cm. long, plumose, more or less naked in the lower 1/4, with a short naked exserted apex; the lateral awns 1.5-2 cm. long, very fine, mostly erect, scaberulous. Flowering from February to June.

Sandy gravely soil.