Tufted perennial without rhizomes; culms 55-120 cm high, erect, usually rather stout. Leaf-blades flat, 12-30 cm long, 3-11 mm wide, scaberulous on both sides or puberulous beneath. Spike usually dense, 7-12 cm long (excluding the awns), straight or slightly curved, the spikelets often secund; rhachis joints scabrid along the margins. Spikelets 4-6-flowered, 16-22 mm long (excluding the awns); glumes subequal, elliptic-oblong, 11-17 mm long, scabrid, sometimes with a lobe or tooth on one side above, abruptly contracted to an acuminate tip; lemma elliptic-oblong, 12-14 mm long, (excluding the awn), scabrid or shortly pubescent on the back, narrowed above into a stout, strongly curved awn 1.5-4 cm long; palea about as long as the body of the lemma or a little shorter; anthers 2.5-3 mm long.

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

Type: USSR, Turkestan, Michelson (LE).

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); Central Asia and western Siberia.

2800-4300m.

Elymus curvatiformis (Nevski) Tzvelev differs from Elymus fedtschenkoi only by its laxer spike without secund spikelets, its narrower, convolute, leaf-blades and its smooth glumes. It was described from the Kurram Valley on the basis of specimen Aitchison 903. An isotype, or at least a specimen bearing the same number, is at Kew, but in no respect does it agree with Nevski’s circumscription. The status of the species awaits further investigation.