Perennial; culms 30-110 cm high, erect, not rooting from the nodes. Leaf-blades 6-40 cm long, 4-12 mm wide, glabrous; upper sheaths slightly inflated; ligule 2-5 mm long, obtuse. Panicle 2-9 cm long, 8-13 mm wide, broadly cylindrical. Spikelets 4-6 mm long; glumes acute, slightly to markedly divergent at the tips, connate for a quarter their length, wingless, the keel and nerves covered with silky hairs up to 2 mm long; lemma usually longer than the glumes, sometimes ± equalling them, slightly to markedly obliquely truncate, the margins connate for a third their length; awn exceeding the tip of the lemma by up to 5 mm, but ,often included in the glumes; anthers 2-3.5 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: May-August.

Type: cultivated in Paris, Poiret (P).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan, N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); Europe and temperate Asia; introduced in North America.

A valuable constituent of alpine pastures between 1700 and 4000 m.