Tufted perennial without rhizomes; culms 18-32 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades tightly folded or convolute, 3-9 cm long, 1.5-2 mm wide when flattened, glabrous and smooth on the lower (outer) surface; lower sheaths silvery-hyaline, shining. Spike lax, 3-6 cm long (excluding the awns), erect or nodding; rhachis joints smooth along the margins. Spikelets 4-6-flowered, 16-20 mm long (excluding the awns); glumes unequal, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, scabrid or smooth, acuminate or shortly awned (up to 2 mm), the lower 4.5-6.5 mm long (including awn), the upper 6-8 mm long (including awn); lemma oblong-elliptic, 8-9 mm long (excluding the awn), smooth or faintly scabrid on the back, produced at the tip into a stout, strongly curved awn, 1.5-4 cm long; palea as long as the body of the lemma; anthers c. 1.5 mm long.

Type locality: Kashmir.

Distribution: Kashmir, endemic.

Nevski (l.c.) gave Pamir-Alai as part of the range of this species, but this may have been from misidentified material. Bor (in Flora Iranica p.168) united Elymus jacquemontii with Agropyron canaliculatum, but the two seem to be clearly distinct on anther length as well as the fact that Elymus jacquemontii has very characteristic silvery-hyaline basal leaf-sheaths.