Culms 10–25 cm tall, 2–3-noded, glabrous or pubescent below nodes. Basal leaves equaling or overtopping culms; leaf sheaths glabrous, shorter than internodes; leaf blades convolute, acicular, outer surface smooth or scabrid; ligule ca. 1 mm, obtuse, densely pilose. Panicle contracted, 4–10 cm, branches usually enclosed by inflated uppermost leaf sheath. Spikelets pale greenish; glumes narrowly lanceolate, equal or lower glume slightly longer, 2–3.5 cm, apex hyaline, long attenuate-filiform; callus pungent, 1.5–2 mm; lemma 7–10 mm, pilose in longitudinal lines, apex with a ring of short hairs or glabrous; awn deciduous, 6–13 cm, 1-geniculate, column 1–2.5 cm, glabrous, bristle 4–14 cm, plumose, hairs 3–6 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun–Jul.

This is the only species in China with a clearly 1-geniculate awn with glabrous column and feathery bristle. The twisted column is almost smooth, and the hairs of the feather begin just below the bend, splaying out around it. It is a good forage grass.

Dry mountain slopes, dry steppes, deserts; 300–4500 m. Gansu, Hebei, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Xizang [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Uzbekistan].