Tufted perennial without rhizomes; calms 70-120 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades flat, up to 25 cm long, 8-12 mm wide, scabrid, sometimes sparsely long-hairy above. Spike dense, 6-15 cm long, erect, sometimes second; rhachis joints scabrid along the margins. Spikelets 3-5-flowered, 6-15 mm long; glumes subequal, linear lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 7-10 mm long, gradually tapering to a mucro or an awn up to 2 mm long, very scabrid on the nerves; lemma lanceolate or narrowly lanceolate, 9-12 mm long, scaberulous, with an awn 2-4 mm long; palea a little shorter than the lemma; anthers 2-2.5 mm long.

Type: USSR, Siberia, Drobov 315 (LE).

Distribution: Gilgit; Arctic Eurasia and North America; the Caucasus and the mountains of Central Asia.