Erect perennial, to ca 4 m tall; culms to ca 5 cm thick, glabrous; sap sweet. Lower internodes short with over lapping sheaths, the sheaths glabrous or softly pubescent toward the top, densely villous in the throat; ligules truncate, minutely ciliate, ca 5 mm long; blades linear with a prominent midvein, sharply serrate, villous on upper surface at base. Inflorescences very large, of silvery, plumose, panicled racemes, the branches simple, drooping; spikelets all alike, 4-5 mm long, in pairs, one sessile, the other pedicellate, surrounded at the base by long trichomes; rachis disarticulating below spikelets; glumes 1-3-veined, acute to acuminate; sterile lemma similar to glume but hyaline; fertile lemma shorter than glumes, hyaline, awnless, sometimes lacking. Fruits not seen. Croat 44759.