Perennial. Culms rambling, often rooting at lower nodes, 1–2 m long, branched, terete, nodes glabrous. Leaves cauline; leaf sheaths striate, loose, glabrous, hispid or sparsely ciliate on margins and toward throat; leaf blades narrowly lanceolate, 10–30 × 1–3 cm, subglabrous to pilose or hispid, base abruptly narrowed, apex acuminate; ligule 0.5–1 mm, a ciliolate membrane. Panicle broadly oblong to orbicular in outline, 15–35 cm, much branched; branches spreading, scabrid, bearing spikelets mostly in the upper half. Spikelets elliptic-oblong, glabrous; lower glume ovate, 1/4–1/3 length of spikelet, 0–5-veined, acute or obtuse, not separated by an internode; upper glume as long as spikelet, 5-veined; lower lemma similar to upper glume, palea absent; upper floret as long as spikelet, pale yellow, smooth, shiny, minutely ciliolate at the apex. Fl. and fr. Jul–Dec.

Humid grasslands, valley slopes; 1000–2500 m. W Yunnan [Bhutan, NE India].