Plants with short rhizomes. Culms tufted, usually ascending at base, 30–50 cm tall, 0.5–1 mm thick, many-noded, sub-inflated at nodes, branches glabrous. Leaf sheaths loose, longer than internodes; leaf blades 1–9 × 0.1–0.3 cm, flat, flaccid, scabrid on both surfaces; ligule ca. 0.5 mm, lacerate, glabrous. Panicle 5–15 cm, narrow, lax; branches slender, flexuose, usually naked below the middle. Spikelets narrowly lanceolate, 3–4 mm, purplish gray-green; glumes 3–4 mm, subequal or lower glume shorter than the upper, lanceolate, membranous, 1-veined, apex acuminate or acute; lemma 3–4 mm, equal to or slightly longer than glumes, lower 1/3 of back pilose; awn 9–14 mm, usually purple, slender, erect or slightly flexuose, scabrid. Anthers ca. 1.5 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul–Oct.

Moist ground of mountain slopes, valleys, ditches, under thickets; 2000–2900 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Afghanistan, Bhutan, Kashmir, Nepal].