Native warm-season perennial tufted long-lived C4 grass to 120 cm tall. Stems are stiff, wiry, often branched and have little leaf. Flowerheads are loose to open panicles 8-30 cm long. Spikelets are 1-flowered; glumes are purple when young and more or less of equal length; lemma lacks a groove down one side, and is 8-12 mm long, pale or purple and 3-awned; awns of slightly different lengths. Flowers from spring to autumn. Found on low fertility soils on roadsides and in native pastures and open forests; often associated with iron bark eucalypts and skeletal, rocky, drier soils. Native biodiversity.