Densely tufted perennial; culms 10-55(-70) cm high. Leaf-blades flat or rolled, 6-20 cm long, 1-2.5 mm wide, minutely pilose on the upper surface, glabrous beneath. Panicle usually contracted, 6-20 cm long, the branches erect or ascending, the longest about a third the length of the panicle. Spikelets lanceolate, 4.5-8.5 mm long; lemma narrowly lanceolate to almost linear, 3-4.5 (-5.5) mm long, densely covered with stiff white hairs 0.4-0.5(-O.7) mm long, these continued to the very tip where they conceal the 2 very short rounded apical lobes; awn 3-6 mm long, exserted from the glumes, subterminal, usually with a sharp upward bend immediately above the horizontally inserted base, deciduous; anthers 1.7-2.5 mm long, their tips densely bearded.

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

Type: Kashmir (Western Tibet), Thomson (K,W).

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); Pamirs eastwards through the Himalayas to Nepal and Tibet.

Piptatherum gracile is intermediate in morphology between Piptatherum laterale and Piptatherum hilariae. It differs from the former by its subapical awn and bibbed lemma tip, and from the latter by its narrower, beakless lemma and bearded anther tips.

Common on alpine meadows between 2300 and 4300 m.