Fairly dense thicket-forming with rhizomes running extensively. Culm usually 3-6 m (often taller in cultivation), glaucous when young, green during the first year, yellow afterwards, erect, with white waxy ring beneath nodes when young; nodes on some shoots congested and sometimes zigzag towards base; internodes swollen and often asymmetric. Culm-sheath light mauve-brown or pinkish brown, mottled dark purplish, especially towards apex; auricles and oral bristles 0; sheath-blade narrow linear, flat, often with greenish pink marginal band. Branches spreading widely to give an open network. Leaf-sheath with long oral bristles. Auricles 0. Ligule minutely puberulent. Leaf-blade usually 5-13-(15) × 0.7-2-(2.7) cm, lanceolate, abaxially glaucescent, acuminate.