Tufted perennial; culms wiry, stiff, usually erect, up to 60 cm high. Leaf-blades 1-5 cm long, 1-3 mm wide. Racemes 1.5-3 cm long, dense, borne upon a flexuous peduncle, bearing numerous long delicate yellowish-brown awns. Spikelets elliptic-oblong, 2.5-3 mm long, the callus bearded with white hairs up to 1.5 mm long; lower glume a little shorter than the spikelet; lower floret male with 2 stamens, very rarely bisexual, lemma hyaline; upper glume and upper lemma bearing slender flexuous awns 10-15 mm long, floret with 2 stamens.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: March-July, sometimes still fruiting in September, especially in Kashmir.

Type: East Indies, Sonnerat (P).

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Afghanistan, India, Burma and Sri Lanka; China; Australia; cultivated throughout its range and in East and South Africa.

Dwarf Bamboo is commonly cultivated as an ornamental grass. It is often found in tufts in rocky banks. It grows in hotter situations than Pogonatherum crinitum and at lower altitudes.