Shortly rhizornatous perennial often forming large clumps; culms 20-200 cm high or more, erect or ascending, woody and often densely fastigiately branched below. Leaf-blades up to .60 cm long and 15 mm wide, flat or convolute, glabrous, scaberulous or pubescent. Panicle linear, 8-30 cm long, often interrupted; rhachis with shallow angular ribs below the stumpless scars, scaberulous to pubescent; involucre borne upon a slender pubescent stipe 0.5-1.5 mm long, enclosing 1-3 (-5) spikelets, one of them sessile, the others shortly pedicelled; bristles, at least the inner, loosely plumose, the longest 15-30 mm long. Spikelets lanceolate, 4.5-6.5 mm long; lower glume a quarter the length of the spikelet and obtuse, to one-third or two-fifths as long and acute, rarely as much as half as long and acuminate, 1-nerved, occasionally nerveless; upper glume half to three-quarters the length of the spikelet, acute to acuminate; lower lemma as long as the spikelet, male, setaceously acuminate; upper lemma similar to the lower; anthers apiculate, without a tuft of hair at the tip.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: April-October.

Type locality: Orient.

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan, Punjab, N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); North Africa, through Arabia to Central and Southwest Asia; India and Nepal.

A very variable species ranging from small tufted plants 20-30 cm high with short panicles to quite large clumps well over 2 m high with panicles up to 30 cm long. The number of spikelets in each involucre varies from 1 to 5, those with 3 having arbitrarily been separated as Pennisetum triflorum. Pennisetum orientale is very similar to the African and Mediterranean Pennisetum setaceum (Forssk.) Chiov., which differs in having a thickened leaf midrib and a tighter panicle with longer bristles.