Tufted perennial without rhizomes; culms (20-)35-90 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, slender or stout. Leaf-blades flat or loosely rolled, 4.5-15 cm long, 1.5-4 mm wide, glabrous or sparsely long-hairy on both sides. Spike dense, 1-sided, 5-11 cm long straight or curved, often deeply suffused with purple; rhachis joints glabrous or sparsely scabrid along the margins. Spikelets 3-5-flowered,8-12 mm long (excluding the awns); rhachilla twisted above the glumes bringing the florets ± dorsi-ventral to the spike-axis, the midrib of the lower glume not in the same line as that of the lowest lemma; glumes subequal, elliptic, 3-4.5 mm long (excluding the awn) narrowed above into an awn 2-5 mm long; lemma elliptic, 9-11 mm long, sparsely to densely bristly on the back, produced at the tip into a stout, strongly curved awn 1.5-2.5 cm long; palea as long as the body of the lemma; anthers 1.25-1.5 mm long.

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

Type: Mongolia, Schrenk (LE).

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); Central Asia and the Himalayas.

c. 4500 m.