Culms 60-100 cm tall, stout, 3-angled, several nodose. Leaves longer than culm; basal sheaths blackish purple, shiny; leaf blade 1-1.5 cm wide, flat, stiff, leathery, margin slightly scabrous. Involucral bracts 5 or 6, leaflike, basal 3 or 4 overtopping inflorescence. Inflorescence a large compound or decompound anthela, 7-10 × 8-15 cm; rays 5 or more, to 9 cm, stout, spreading, smooth. Spikelets sessile, in headlike clusters of 4-10, ovoid, ellipsoid, or oblong, 3-8 × 2.5-3.5 mm, many flowered, apex obtuse. Glumes brown, densely arranged, broadly ovate to ovate-orbicular, ca. 1.2 mm, membranous, with 1 pale brown vein, apex obtuse to rounded. Perianth bristles 2 or 3, longer than nutlet, erect, apical half sparsely antrorsely scabrous. Style filiform, 1.2-1.5 mm; stigmas ?2. Nutlet pale yellow, ellipsoid, obovoid, or subspherical, 0.7-1 mm, biconvex. Fl. and fr. (May-)Jun-Aug.

Wet places, hillsides, valleys; 300-1400(-1800) m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Taiwan, SE Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam; Pacific islands].