Tufted perennial without rhizomes; culms 30-110 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, slender. Leaf-blades flat, 10-30 cm long, 4-13 mm wide, glabrous or loosely hairy above; sheaths glabrous along the margins. Spike slender, 5-20 cm long (excluding the awns), curved or nodding; rhachis joints scabrid or shortly hairy along the margins. Spikelets 2-6-flowered, 10-15(-20) mm long (excluding the awns); glumes equal or slightly unequal, lanceolate to narrowly oblong, 6-10 mm long, acuminate or narrowed into an awn up to 4 mm long; lemma lanceolate-oblong, 9-11(-13) mm long (excluding the awn), glabrous below, sometimes with minute scattered hairs towards the tip, narrowed into a straight or flexuous awn 7-20 mm long; palea as long as the body of the lemma, pointed or shortly 2-toothed at the tip; anthers 2-3 mm long.

2000-3700 m.

Type locality: Europe.

Distribution: Gilgit & Kashmir; Europe and temperate Asia; introduced into North America.

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