Tall caespitose perennial; culms up to 4.5 m high. Leaf-blades up to 100 cm long, 3-20 mm wide, flat. Panicle 25-70 cm long, dense or sublobate, the axis markedly angular (usually 6-angled) and the peduncle glabrous; racemes 1.5-3 cm long, much shorter than the supporting branches, the internodes and pedicels hirsute with hairs 3-6 mm long. Spikelets slightly heteromorphous, 3-6(-6.5) mm long, the callus bearded with whitish, greyish or sometimes yellowish hairs up to about 4 mm long; glumes equal, membranous, those of the sessile spikelet glabrous, the lower scabrid on the keels, or sometimes with a few hairs at the base, those of the pedicelled spikelet sparsely to moderately hairy on the back, the hairs shorter than those of the callus; lower lemma lanceolate, glabrous; upper lemma narrow, attenuate with an awn 2.5-10 mm long, well exserted from the glumes.