Plants perennial; cesptiose, neither stoloniferous nor rhizomatous. Culms 75-90 cm tall, branched. ascending or scrambling, sometimes rooting at the lower nodes. Sheaths glabrous or pubescent, sometimes hispid on the margins, distal marginal hais 2-4 mm long, stiff; ligules about 0.3 mm long; blades 10-17(-40) cm long, 2.8-7 mm wide, usually flat, tapering to the apices. Synflorescences with (1-)2-4(-7) branches in a single digitate cluster; branches 7-15(-25) cm long, divergent to drooping, spikelet-bearing to the base. Spikelets with 2 florets. Glumes hyaline to thinly membranous, lanceolate, scabrous or smooth, long acuminate; lower glumes 1.5-3 mm long; upper glumes 4-6.5 mm; lower lemmas 3.5-5 mm long, scabrous distally, notched, awned, awns 7-15 mm long; distal florets 0.8-1.8 mm long, sterile, attenuate basally into the rachilla, terminally awned, awns 3-7 mm long. Caryopses 2.5-3 mm long; embryos about 1 mm long. 2n = 20, 40, 60.
Enteropogon dolichostachyus is native from Afghanistan through southeast Asia to Australis. It has been collected from near a woollen mill in South Carolina, United States, in 1891 and recollected there in 1958 (NCU00069981) but is not known to have spread.