Culms to 7 m, ca. 4 cm in diam.; internodes dark green, with purple markings, to 40 cm or more, initially white powdery below nodes, glabrous or pubescent; nodes weakly elevated, supra-nodal ridge as prominent as sheath scar or more prominent in slender culms. Culm sheaths yellow-green or green in smaller shoots, distally laterally straw-colored, with irregular, longitudinal, brown spots and streaks at lower nodes, these diminishing in mid-culm and absent in upper culm; auricles and oral setae absent; ligule purple, arcuate or convex, to ca. 5 mm, puberulent, ciliate; blade reflexed, usually purple-tinged, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, contracted at base. Leaves (1 or)2 or 3(–5) per ultimate branch; sheath glabrous; ligule obliquely arcuate or oblique, to ca. 2 mm, glabrous or puberulent, entire or ciliate; blade oblong-lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, to 15 × 1.9 cm, abaxially glaucous or gray-green and puberulent or glabrous, adaxially deep green and glabrous. Racemes 6–12(–16) cm, with (1 or)2 or 3(–6) spikelets; peduncle and lower branches enclosed by sheathlike bracts or slightly exserted; pedicels 5–8 mm, slender, glabrous, subtended by a minute, membranous bract. Spikelets linear or linear-lanceolate, to 8 cm; florets several to many; rachilla internodes 4–5 mm, compressed, apex puberulent. Glumes 3, 1st much smaller, 5–9-veined, 2nd and 3rd resembling lemmas but slightly smaller; lemma 1–2 cm, 11–15-veined, transverse veins abaxially distinct, scabrid, proximally pubescent, apex acuminate with a subulate or short awnlike point; palea abaxially scabrid, usually pubescent, inconspicuously 2–4-veined between keels and on each flank, apex obtuse or emarginate; keels distally distinct, glabrous or distally sparsely ciliolate, extending into subapical mucros; lodicules 3, narrowly rhomboid-ovate or lanceolate, ca. 4 mm. Stamens 3; anthers ca. 7 mm. Style slender; stigmas 3. New shoots and fl. May.

* Forests on slopes of hills; below 1100 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, S Hunan, S Jiangxi.