Reeds have tall plants with well-developed creeping rhizomes underground. The stalks are erect, culms 1 to 3 meters tall, often white powdery below the nodes. The leaf sheaths are cylindrical, glabrous or finely hairy. The ligule is hairy and the leaf blades are long linear or long lanceolate, arranged in two rows.

Leaves 15-45 centimeters long, 1-3,5 centimeters wide. Panicle densely branched, obliquely spreading, inflorescence 1-4 cm long, spikelets with 4-7 florets; glumes 3-veined, one glume shorter, the second slightly longer; first floret mostly male, the rest hermaphroditic; second exalbuminous apex long acuminate, long filiform pilosity of basal disk 6-12 mm long; palea ca. 4 mm long, scabrid on the ridges. With long, stout creeping rhizomes, mainly propagated by rhizomes.

Tall perennial aquatic or wet grass, growing beside irrigation ditches, riverbank swamps, etc.