Japan Flora: Tufted perennial; culms 50-120 cm. long, with a ring of long white hairs on nodes; leaf­blades flat, linear, 5-10 mm. wide, sometimes loosely involute, glabrous or pilose on upper surface, glaucous beneath; ligules truncate to semirounded, 1-2.5 mm. long; sheaths pilose around mouth and on margin; panicles exserted, 10-20 cm. long, the branches very slender, terete, with a single raceme, 2-6 cm. long, short-pilose in axils, the lower falsely verticillate; racemes rather numerous, 1-1.5 cm. long, few-jointed, the joints reddish ciliate; pedicelled spikelets staminate, awnless or short-awned, the pedicels similar to and as long as the rachis joints; sessile spikelets broadly lanceolate, brown-pilose, acute, about 5 mm. long; first glume coriaceous, lustrous, dark brown, with a pale green, membranous tip; fertile Iemma re­duced to a geniculate awn 2-2.5 cm. long. Aug.-Oct. Thickets and open places in lowlands.

Honshu (Kii Prov. and westw.), Shikoku, Kyushu. s. Korea, China, and Malaysia. The typical phase occurs in warmer parts of Asia and Australia.