Tufted perennial with creeping rhizomes; culms 25-80 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades flat, 10-30 cm long, 4-11 mm wide, smooth or scabrid. Spike moderately dense, 6-15 cm long, erect, rhachis joints scabrid along the margins. Spikelets 3-5-flowered, 12-15 mm long; glumes unequal, oblong or narrowly elliptic-oblong, usually toothed at the tip, sometimes acuminate or shortly awned, smooth or scabrid, the lower 6-8 mm long, the upper 7-9 mm long; lemma oblong-lanceolate, 8-9(-11) mm long, minutely bristly on the back, at least in the lower part, acute or shortly awned; palea as long as the lemma; anthers 1.5-2 mm long.

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

Type locality: Kashmir.

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir), endemic.

A variable species sometimes broken down into four varieties. These have awned (vars. elatum and scabrum) or awnless (vars. dentatum and kashmiricum) lemmas; var. dentatum has glabrous sheaths while var. kashmiricum has densely short-hairy sheaths; var. datum has longer spikelets than var. scabrum.

3000-5000 m.