Perennials. Culms 55–100 cm high. Leaves: sheaths mostly overlapping; ligule 0.2–0.5 mm long; blade usually flat, flexuose or curling with age, to 25 cm long, to 5 mm wide, capillary towards apex, scaberulous, sometimes pilose. Panicles open, 19–36 cm long, 6–15 cm wide, loose, scabrous; branches simple or sparsely branched, stiffly spreading, usually entirely spikelet-bearing, with prominent pulvini. Spikelets pedicellate, sparse, stiffly spreading, strongly laterally compressed, linear to lanceolate, 5–10.5 mm long, 1.5–2 mm wide; rachilla zig-zagged, thick, wider below nodes; florets 10–23, becoming loosely overlapping. Glumes ±equal, linear-lanceolate, 1–3 mm long, membranous. Lemma lanceolate, 1.6–1.8 mm long, acute or acuminate, membranous to cartilaginous, 3-nerved. Palea about 2/3 as long as its lemma; body oblong or spathulate; keels scaberulous. Stamens 3; anthers 0.3–1 mm long. Grain not compressed or laterally compressed, 0.3–0.7 mm long.
Growsin sandy or podsolic soils with quartzite or laterite, on clay soil flats,lagoon and creek banks, in depressions and on roadsides.
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