Perennial plants 30–60 (–90) cm high, sometimes glaucous; base usually thickened, pubescent. Culms branched, glabrous; nodes glabrous or pubescent. Leaves glabrous or sometimes hispid with tuberclebased hairs; sheaths to half as long as culm internodes; blade to 16 cm long, to 4 mm wide, scabrous, with scabrous-prickly and/or tuberculate margins. Panicles rather contracted, 4–7 (–13) cm long, 1.5–3 cm wide; axils glabrous or pubescent or pilose, usually with prominent pulvini. Glumes slightly unequal, 4–5 (–6.3) mm long, muticous or with a cusp to 0.5 mm long, 5–7-nerved, smooth or sometimes scabrous, glabrous or sometimes pilose to hirsute. Florets shorter than longest glume. Callus with a basal ring of hairs and a glabrous tip. Lemma 3.8–5 mm long, acute, muticous, membranous, 5-nerved, not grooved, hirsute with tubercle-based hairs in lower 3/4, glabrous and smooth above; margins ciliate to apex. Palea entire, muticous, hirsute near base or in lower half, glabrous and smooth above. Caryopsis 1.5–2 mm long.
A common, widespread and adaptable species, growing in skeletal, shallow or deep soils (of fine clays and clayey loams), intermediate (podsols and red earths), or coarse (sands) texture, in association with sandstone, laterite, basalt, quartzite, granite and calcareous rocks. Habitats include sandplains, coastal sand dunes, salt pans and marshes, lagoons, depressions and swamps, coastal pindan, rocky undulating plateaux, gorge floors, the alluvial banks, beds and levees of streams, seepage slopes, and the slopes of hills, ridges and mesas.
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