Usually perennial, caesipitose, rhizomatous. Culms erect, 0.8–2.5 (–3) m high. Leaves: ligule 2–8 mm long, acute to obtuse or truncate; blade 20–50 cm long, 4–12 (–15) mm wide, basally hairy on upper surface or sometimes hairs on entire surface, both surfaces smooth to scabrous, with margins scabrous. Panicles 13–40 (–50) cm long; primary branches markedly antrorsely hispid. Spikelets disarticulating, 6–7.5 (–8.5) mm long; pedicel antrorsely hispid. Sterile florets: lemma ovate to lanceolate, 1.4–2.5 (–3) mm long, acute to acuminate, glabrous or with a few scaberulous hairs on margin near apex. Bisexual floret: lemma mostly oblongovate, (5.5–) 6–7.5 (–8) mm long, awned, coriaceous to indurate, prominently 5-nerved; lemma awn (10–) 15–55 (–65) mm long, basally flattened; palea (5–) 6–8 mm long, with awn (1–) 1.5–3 (–4) mm long; anthers mostly 3–5 mm long; stigmas yellow or white. Caryopsis obloid to ellipsoid, laterally compressed, 4.5–6.4 mm long.
Grows in or at the edge of water, in swamps, billabongs, lagoons, creeks, drainage channels, behind river levees, in depressions or gilgais, in woodlands or seasonally inundated areas including floodplains, seasonally dry pools and ephemeral waterholes, often in black or grey clays.
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