Annual. Culms rather slender, ca. 70 cm tall, ca. 1.5 mm in diam., nodes pubescent. Leaf sheaths glabrous or papillose-pilose, margins ciliolate; leaf blades linear-lanceolate, thin, 3–14 × 0.4–1.2 cm, papillose-pilose on both surfaces, narrowed toward base, apex acuminate. Panicle open, 4–17 × 0.5–3 cm, branches ascending, simple or the lowermost with secondary branchlets, every branchlet tip extended into a 1–8 mm bristle, rarely a few spikelets also subtended by a single bristle; axis scabrous to ciliolate along the edges. Spikelets ovate-lanceolate to elliptic, 2.4–2.6 mm, yellowish green or tinged purple; lower glume triangular, 1/3 as long as spikelet, 1–3-veined, acute or acuminate; upper glume as long as or slightly shorter than spikelet, 5-veined, acute or obtuse; lower lemma as long as spikelet, subpapery, 3–5-veined, acute; upper lemma as long as lower, finely punctate-rugose. Fl. and fr. Jun–Oct.

This species, with a bristle only at the branch tips, is close to Paspalidium. The bristles are very inconspicuous when they are shorter than the spikelets.

* Roadsides, streams, coniferous forests; 2300–3900 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan.