Rhizomatous perennial; culms 75-110 cm high, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades ± linear, 20-35 cm long, 3.5-11 mm wide, broadest in the middle, flat or convulute when dry, scaberulous and sometimes also loosely hispid; ligule truncate, 0.5-1 mm long; sheaths smooth and glabrous or thinly retrorsely hispid. Panicle 20-35 cm long, lax, the branches distant, 7-12 cm long, ascending, bearing spikelets on pedicels 1-5 mm long. Spikelets oblong, 6.5-8 mm long with 2 fertile florets scarcely distinguished from the sterile and separated by an internode about 2 mm long; glumes elliptic or lanceolate, acute, broadly membranous, the lower 2.5-3.3 mm long, the upper 4-5 mm long; lemma of fertile floret elliptic-oblong, 4.5-5.5 mm long, subacute or obtuse with broadly membranous tip, strongly 7-nerved and often with weaker intermediate nerves, scaberulous.

Type: Japan, Ono..

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); China and Japan.

Melica onoei is very similar to Melica scaberrima, differing mainly by the smaller dimensions of the parts of the spikelet, the frequently narrower panicle and the broader leaves.