Russia Flora: Plant 100—300 cm tall. Stems up to 60 mm thick, hard, solid. Sheaths smooth; leaf blades 50—80 (120) mm wide, rough above, ciliate along the margins; ligule of upper leaves about 5 mm long, ciliate. Staminate inflorescence — spreading panicles of long spike-like branches; spikelets 6—8 mm long, with 1—2 (3) flowers, one sessile, the other on a short pedicel, their glumes with 6—12 veins, pubescent. Pistillate inflorescence — axillary ears at middle leaves, surrounded by modified leaves with reduced blades, where spikelets are arranged in longitudinal rows on a thick fleshy axis; spikelets with one flower, short, blunt, their glumes cartilaginous, shorter than mature grains, and floral scales membranous.

Cultivated as a highly valuable food (grain, oil), fodder and technical (partly medicinal) plant in Amur, Khabarovsk, Primorye, Sakhalin (in relatively more northern regions of the Far East it is predominantly a fodder crop). Native range — apparently countries of Central and South America (Mexico, Guatemala, Peru).