Changes

Perennial, tufted grass up to 90 cm tall, with a short oblique rhizome; stem (culm) erect, unbranched, glabrous at the nodes. Leaves alternate, simple, mainly forming a basal tuft; leaf sheath glabrous or with straight silky hairs, terete; ligule a line of hairs; blade linear, 5–30 cm × 2–3 mm, involute, rarely flat. Inflorescence a panicle 5–20 cm long, ovoid with stiffly spreading primary branches, or narrowly lanceolate and densely contracted, or linear and interrupted with the spikelets in clusters on stubby side branches, the primary branches not in whorls, terminating in a fertile spikelet. Spikelet almost sessile, ovate to narrowly oblong, strongly laterally compressed, 4–20 mm × 1.5–4 mm, 7–30-flowered, dark yellowish green to dull grey, with bisexual florets; glumes almost equal, ovate, 1–2 mm long, keeled, glabrous, apex acute; lemma ovate, 2–3.5 mm long, keeled, leathery, apex acute to acuminate; palea oblong-elliptical, glabrous on the sides; stamens 3, anthers 1–1.5 mm long; ovary superior, with 2 stigmas. Fruit an ellipsoid caryopsis (grain) 1–1.5 mm long.