Perennial. Stems usually robust, scabrid on the angles, up to 2½ m tall and 4-10 mm thick. Leaves in the middle part of the stems clustered, in pseudowhorls of 2-5, gradually narrowed upwards, scabrid on the margins and the main nerves, glabrous, rarely hairy, 4-20 mm wide; sheaths glabrous, wingless or winged (wings up to 1 cm wide, often protracted at the top into an up to 1 cm long auricle), green or purplish; contraligule short, broadly rounded, hirsuteciliate. Inflorescence broad, up to 70 cm long, rather loose to dense, consisting of a large, broadly pyramidal terminal panicle and up to 7, single or binate lateral ones; branches patent; ultimate bracts conspicuous, more or less exserted from the panicle. Spikelets 2-3 together, unisexual; ♂ spikelets lanceolate, 3-4 mm long; ♀ ones at the base of the branchlets, ovoid, rounded at the base, 4 mm long; stamens 3; anthers 1-1½ mm long. Disk 3-lobed, triangular, thick, glabrous, yellowish; lobes triangular, obtuse, c. ⅓ as high as the nut, 1-1¼ mm long denticulate at the top. Nut rather large, exserted from the glumes, ovoid or broadly ovoid, umbonate, scrobiculate, rarely smooth, hirtellous on the raised walls, glabrescent, white, 2½-3 by 2½-2⅔ mm.
Damp shaded localities: thickets, forests, forest-borders, old clearings, etc., usually at low altitudes, rarely up to 1250 (1800?) m.
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