Robust, caespitose perennial, the basal sheaths broad and papery but not flabellate; culms up to 300 cm high, erect. Leaf laminas up to 45 cm × 12 mm, flat or loosely inrolled. Inflorescence up to 35 cm long, with a central axis up to 15 cm long; racemes 6–12, each 15–25 cm long, occasionally some of them branched; internodes and pedicels linear, subclavate upwards, smooth or scabrid. Sessile spikelet narrowly lanceolate, yellowish-green or purplish; callus with a short central peg; inferior glume 4–8 mm long, firmly chartaceous, flat across the back, faintly to prominently nerved, muricate on the back and sides below, or smaller spikelets on the sides only, the protuberances often bearing a sharp prickle, rigidly ciliate on the margins above, these scarcely winged, acuminate to apiculate or mucronate at the apex. Pedicelled spikelet sometimes similar to the sessile spikelet, but often smaller or even almost suppressed, rigidly apiculate at the apex, with a short callus, this with a short central peg; pedicels from half as long to almost as long as the internode.