Perennial from a short knotty rhizome. Culms erect, 60–100 cm tall, 2–3 mm in diam., 3–4-noded, unbranched. Leaf sheaths glabrous; leaf blades linear-lanceolate, 8–30 × 0.5–1.5 cm, abaxial surface tuberculate-pilose, adaxial surface glabrous, margins smooth, base of lower blades deeply sagittate with pilose pseudopetiole up to 10 cm and acuminate lobes to 1.5 cm, apex acuminate; ligule 2–6 mm. Panicle open, lanceolate in outline, 9–20 cm; branches 2–5 cm, pilose in axils, unbranched, tipped by a solitary spikelet, a spikelet pair, or 3 spikelets; disarticulating at maturity, rachis internodes (when present) and pedicels slenderly clavate, 3/4 as long to equaling spikelets, shortly ciliate. Spikelets 4–6 mm, yellowish green; callus hairs ca. 1.5 mm; lower glume lanceolate-oblong, pilose, 11–13-veined, veins smooth, apex subacute; upper glume similar, 8–11-veined, emarginate; lower floret staminate, palea well developed; upper lemma 2-lobed to below middle; awn 12–20 mm. Anthers 3.5–4 mm. Fl. and fr. autumn.

Spodiopogon lacei Hole, from Bhutan, NE India, N Myanmar, and N Thailand, is another species with sagittate leaf blades. It differs in its more robust culms to 2.5 m tall and 3–4 mm thick; denser, brownish panicle of 2- or 3-noded, dense racemes with shorter, clavate rachis internodes; and by the upper glume of the sessile spikelet, which is strongly keeled and smooth without prominent veins.

* Mountain slopes, forests, grasslands; 1500–1800 m. Yunnan.