Japan Flora: Rhizomes stout, long-creeping; culms 1-1.5 m. long, 3-angled, 2.5-4 mm. thick above, naked, with 2 or 3 bladeless or short-bladed sheaths at base; corymbs usually compound, with 5-10 rays to 7 cm. long, the bracts 2-4, leaflike, usudly shorter than the inflorescence, to 7 cm. long; spikelets linear, hardly compressed, 1-3 cm. long, 1-1.5 mm. thick, light ferruginous, loosely 20- to 40- flowered; scales oblong, 2-2.5 mm. long, very obtuse, nearly erect, not keeled; achenes slightly shorter than the scale, com­pressed-trigonous, linear-oblong; stigmas  3.  Aug.-Oct. Occasiondly cultivated, also wild in the warmer parts.

Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu. Ryukyus, Formosa, China, and Indo­china.