Perennial, with spreading scaly rhizomes. Culms solitary, erect, 70–200 cm tall, 2–4 mm in diam., unbranched. Leaf sheaths glabrous; leaf blades linear-lanceolate, (10–)20–40 × 0.8–2 cm, glabrous or pubescent, base narrowed almost to midrib on lower blades, apex setaceously acuminate; ligule 1–2 mm. Panicle loosely contracted, narrowly lanceolate in outline, 10–20 cm; branches 2–6 cm, unbranched or lower branches branched once or twice, branchlets glabrous or pilose in axils; racemes 2–3-noded with 7–9 spikelets, disarticulating at maturity, one spikelet of a pair sessile, the other pedicellate; rachis internodes and pedicels 2.5–5 mm, slenderly clavate, ciliate, hairs 1.5–2 mm. Spikelets 4.5–6 mm; callus hairs 1.5–2.5 mm; lower glume broadly lanceolate, pilose with soft spreading hairs, veins smooth except near apex, apex acute or slightly emarginate, sometimes mucronate; upper glume acute or mucronate; lower floret staminate, palea well developed; upper lemma 2-lobed to lower 1/3; awn 10–15 mm. Anthers ca. 3 mm. Fl. and fr. summer–autumn. 2n = 40.

Mountain slopes, roadsides, forest margins; below 1100 m. Anhui, Gansu, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia (Siberia)].