Perennial; rhizomes stout, up to 2 ft. long and 4 lin. in diameter, many-noded, glabrous and smooth; innovations extravaginal, their buds clothed with firm glabrous cataphylls. Culms erect, up to 7 1/2 ft. high, stout, up to 4 lin. wide at the base, terete, simple, rarely branched, up to 10-noded, densely scaberulous or hispidulous below the inflorescence, otherwise glabrous and smooth; lower internodes thinly coated with a whitish wax or, like the upper, glaucescent or waxy only below the nodes. Leaf-sheaths longer than the internodes, loose and exposing the culm, terete, glabrous and smooth, striate upwards and often with prominent cross-nerves, the lower broad, straw-coloured or brownish, firm with thin margins, rather brittle and at length breaking up, the upper green; ligule reduced to a densely ciliate rim; blade linear, as wide as the sheath at the base, gradually tapering to an acute tip, up to 1 1/2 ft. long and 3 1/2 lin. wide, flat or convolute, firm, green, closely nerved above, scaberulous on the margins, shortly pilose just behind the ligule, otherwise glabrous and smooth. False spike very dense, cylindric, straight or flexuous, 3–7 1/2 in. long, 3–4 lin. wide (exclusive of the bristles), pallid or purplish; rhachis slender, hispidulous, densely studded with the clustered subcupular minute stumps of the deciduous involucres; involucres sessile, spreading; bristles 12–20 to each involucre, very slender, scaberulous, free to the base, of unequal length, one slightly stouter than the others and up to 4 lin. long, the rest up to 2 1/2 lin. long. Spikelets solitary, sessile within the involucre, lanceolate to ovate or oblong, acute, mostly 1 1/2–1 3/4 lin. long, glabrous. Glumes hyaline; lower oblate, truncate, 1/6– 1/4 lin. long, nerveless; upper oblate or broadly ovate, obtuse or acute and mucronulate, 1/3– 1/2 lin. long, 1-nerved or nerveless. Lower floret barren: valve when flattened broadly ovate or ovate-oblong, acute or obtuse, mucronulate, 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. long, membranous, 3–5-nerved, minutely scaberulous upwards; valvule suppressed. Upper floret hermaphrodite, lanceolate to oblong, acute: valve when flattened broadly ovate- to elliptic-oblong, obtuse, mucronulate, as long as the spikelet, 5-nerved, minutely scaberulous upwards; valvule lanceolate, nearly as long as the valve. Lodicules very minute. Anthers nearly 1 lin. long, with glabrous apiculate tips. Styles connate. Grain broadly oblong, dorsally compressed, 1/2 lin. long.
