Coll. Pl. 2: 26, t. 47 (1810); FWTA: 360 (1972); RI: 105 (1977); Zon: 34, fig. 5 (1992); Poicelot: 61, fig. (1995); Ohrnberger, Bamboos World: 279 (1999)
var. vittata A.Rivière, Bull. Soc. Acclim. Sér. 3: 640 (1878)
* Perennial growing in clumps to 6 m diameter and 13 m high, with hollow jointed woody culms, up to 10 cm diameter. Internodes of the main culm partly enveloped by large pale sheath enveloped armed with stiff short appressed reddish-brown hairs, shoulders with auricles and reduced blade up to 5 cm. Leaves borne on slender branches attached to the main culms, linear-elliptic, up to 30 cm long and 3.5 cm broad, glabrous, and very finely nerved, with a midrib distinctly recessed on the upper surface; sharply scabrid margins; base broadly but unequally rounded; short false petiole; ligule short, inconspicuous, membranous. Sheath with shoulders bearing tiny auricles.
* Inflorescence usually born on a branch of a leafless culm bearing small groups of pseudospikelets at the nodes, 2 – 6 cm apart a panicle of 2 – 3 m long with up to 6 spikelets together on each node. Rarely flowering (March 1925).
* Spikelets 1 – 1.6 cm long and 3 – 5 mm broad, laterally flattened; 5 – 10 perfect florets in 2 rows and a terminal vestigial floret. Lemmas ciliate, rounded on the tip; paleas with long hairs along the margin.