Perennial. Culms stoloniferous, straggling, ascending to 20–80 cm. Leaf sheaths glabrous, pilose or tuberculate-hairy; leaf blades lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 3–20 × 0.5–3 cm, subglabrous to tuberculate-hairy, base usually oblique. Inflorescence axis 5–15 cm, glabrous to tuberculate-hairy; racemes 3–6, 2–6 cm, ascending to erect. Spikelets in 7–14 widely spaced, sometimes patent pairs, lanceolate, glabrous to thinly pilose; glumes herbaceous, awned, the awns stout, green or purple, viscid; lower glume awn 5–10 mm; upper glume awn to 3 mm or occasionally absent; lower lemma subcoriaceous, 7–9-veined, acute or with a stout 0.3–1 mm mucro; upper lemma subcoriaceous, ca. 2.5 mm, smooth. Fl. and fr. Sep–Nov. 2n = 54, 72*.

Moist places in forests and along forest margins, hill slopes. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan, Philippines, Thailand, and elsewhere in tropical Asia extending westward through India to E Africa; Australia, Pacific Islands (Polynesia)].