Rhizome neck 5–15 cm, 1.4–3 cm in diam.; internodes 3–8 mm. Culms 3–5 m, 1–2 cm in diam.; internodes terete, 20 (–25) cm, conspicuously grooved above branches, smooth, very rigid, initially white powdery, especially below nodes, solid or nearly so, cavity filled with lamellate or spongy pith; supra-nodal ridges prominent. Branches 5–7 per node, deflexed, unequal, thickly walled. Culm sheaths soon deciduous, gray-yellow, narrowly triangular, longer than internodes, basally leathery, distally papery, sparsely brown setose, margins densely ciliate; auricles and oral setae absent; ligule convex, irregularly fissured; blade reflexed, linear-lanceolate, glabrous. Leaves 2 or 3 per ultimate branch; sheath glabrous, margin glabrous or ciliolate; auricles and oral setae absent; ligule arcuate or convex, ca. 1 mm; blade linear-lanceolate, 2.8–5 × 0.25–0.5 cm, narrow, glabrous, secondary veins 2- or 3-paired, transverse veins distinct, one margin spinescent-serrulate, other margin obscure. Inflorescence unknown. New shoots Jun.

The shoots are delicious, and the culms are used for making paper, chopsticks, and farm tools.

* W Sichuan.