Tufted perennial 15-60 cm high. Leaf-blades involute and setaceous, up to 1 mm wide when flattened, glabrous on the lower (outer) surface; ligule 2-3 mm long. Panicle very loose and open, 5-18 cm long, the branches spreading, few-spiculate, the spikelets borne on long capillary pedicels. Glumes subequal, 4.5-6.3 mm long, elliptic, acute or subacute, the lower 3-nerved, the upper 5-nerved, purple below with pallid margins and tip; lemma narrowly elliptic, 5-5.5 mm long (including callus), pilose especially in the lower part and at the tip, 2-toothed at the tip, the teeth 0.5-0.75 mm long; callus conical, blunt, 0.4-0.6 mm long. Awn flexuous but also indistinctly bigeniculate, not articulated at the base, 15-30 mm long, plumose throughout with hairs 0.75-1.5 mm long.

Type: Mongolia, Turczaninov (LE).

Distribution: Kashmir; Himalayas, Tibet, Mongolia and southern USSR.

3000-5000 m.