Tufted perennial; culms 30-70 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, slender. Leaf-blades flat, 6-14 cm long, 2-6 mm wide, sparsely hairy above, glabrous beneath; sheaths hairy along the margins. Spike lax, 3-9.5 cm long (excluding the awns), erect or slightly nodding; rhachis joints scabrid along the margins. Spikelets c.3-flowered, 10-13 mm long (excluding the awns); glumes unequal, lanceolate-elliptic, with prominent scaberulous nerves, acuminate or mucronate, the lower 5-6 mm long, the upper 6-8 mm long; lemma oblong-lanceolate, 6-8 mm long (excluding the awn), glabrous or minutely scabrid at the tip, produced at the tip into an awn 10-15 mm long; palea as long as the body of the lemma or very slightly longer, rounded or broadly emarginate at the tip; anthers c.2 mm long.

Type: Pakistan, Aitchison 709 (BM, K).

Distribution: endemic to the Kurram Valley.

Similar to Elymus caninus but with ciliate sheath-margins and a broadly blunt paleatip. Known only from the type specimen.