Loosely tufted perennial; culms 13-40cm high, usually erect, clothed at the base with the scarious remains of old leaf-sheaths. Leaf-blades flat or folded, 3-16cm long, 1.5-2.5mm wide, tapering to a stout point, scabrid on the margins and both surfaces; ligule blunt, 1.5-3.5mm long. Panicle pyramidal, 6-15cm long; branches paired, erect at first, becoming horizontally spreading or even deflexed, capillary, smooth or faintly scaberulous. Spikelets 3-4-flowered, ovate-elliptic, 4.5-5.5mm long, often suffused with purple; glumes unequal, the lower narrowly elliptic, 2.5-3mm long, 1-nerved, the upper broader, 3-3.5mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas oblong in side-view, 3.5-4.5mm long, blunt, ciliate on the keel and marginal nerves, scabrid all over the dorsal surface and with a few short hairs or a felty pubescence between the nerves below, with or rarely without a little wool at the base; palea shorter than the lemma, pectinately scabrid along the keels; anthers 2-3mm long.

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

Type: Sikkim, Hooker f. (K).

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Himalayas and Tibet.

3300-3700m.