Tufted perennial; culms 20-80(-100) cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades folded, rarely flat or convolute, 5-15 cm long, 1-2(-3.5) mm wide, green or glaucous, scabrid above. Panicle lanceolate to broadly ovate, 8-20(-25) cm long, loose to rather dense, the branches bare in the lower part, smooth, ascending at first, spreading or ± deflexed at maturity. Spikelets 5-7 mm long, 4-7-flowered, green or suffused with purple, sometimes also tinged with yellow; glumes oblong, acute, the lower 1-1.7 mm long, 1-nerved, the upper 1.5-2.5 mm long, 1-3-nerved; lemmas 2-3 mm long, oblong, truncate and shortly apiculate at the tip, ± hairy on the nerves below, the nerves not reaching the tip; palea keels glabrous or ciliolate below, scabrid above; anthers 1.2-1.6 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: May.

Type: USSR, Caucasus, Grossheim (LE, TBI).

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan and southern USSR.

1700-1800 m.