Tufted annual; culms 14-120 cm high, erect or ascending, firm or spongy, rarely fastigiately branched above. Leaf-blades broadly linear to narrowly lanceolate, 545 cm long, 5-12 mm wide, subcordate at the base, flat, glabrous or rarely hispid with tubercle-based hairs, blunt or sharply acute. Panicle ovate or oblong, 5-35 cm long the branches naked below and whorled in the lower part of the panicle. Spikelets oblong-elliptic, 2.3-3 mm long, glabrous, abruptly acute, often grotesquely swollen in diseased plants; lower glume broadly ovate, a third to half as long as the spikelet, 5-7(-9)-nerved, acute; upper glume 11-nerved; lower lemma 9-nerved, its palea almost as long; upper lemma pallid, smooth and shining.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: August-September.

Type locality: India.

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind & Punjab); India, Burma, Ceylon and Malaysia.

Panicum psilopodium is a variable species ranging from short tufts to tall aquatics with spongy stems. Two varieties, based on panicle colour, have been recognised, var. psilopodium with greenish spikelets and var. coloratum with purplish spikelets. Diseased plants are not uncommon in certain areas. The plant is common in cultivated fields in the summer, especially in the Punjab.