Tufted perennial with thick tough rhizomes; culms fastigiately branched at the base, 30-120 cm high, erect. Leaf-blades linear, 5-40 cm long, 4-13 mm wide, flat or folded; sheaths neither strongly keeled (but the lowest may be weakly keeled) nor conspicuously imbricate. Panicle linear, 4-22 cm long; rhachis with shallow angular ribs below the cupular scars, scaberulous; involucre enclosing 1-4 spikelets, one of them sessile and bisexual, the others shortly pedicelled and male (but scarcely different in appearance), rarely one of them bisexual, the base with a short oblong stipe 0.3-0.7 mm long; bristles glabrous, rarely very obscurely ciliate, the longest 12-22(-30) mm long. Spikelets lanceolate, 4.5-6.5 mm long; lower glume up to a quarter the length of the spikelet, subacute, rotund or truncate, rarely 0; upper glume one-third to two-thirds the length of the spikelet, but seldom less than half as long, acute to acuminate; lemmas similar, acuminate, the lower male; anther tips without a tuft of hair.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: (April June-October).

Type: Kashmir, Thomson.

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab, N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); Himalayas westward to Afghanistan; Tibet and southern China.

Common in the higher alpine slopes, it is grazed by sheep and goats. Some collectors say it is a useful fodder grass.