Plants perennial, erect, tufted but sometimes also rhizomatous. Stems to 4.5(-7) m tall, usually solid, glabrous. Leaves: ligules membranous, sometimes ciliate; blades linear or lanceolate, often narrow, long attenuate. Panicles erect, dense, conspicuoulsy white hairy, much-branched; branch internodes linear, longer or shorter than the spikelets. Sessile and pedicellate spikelets similar in shape and size, lanceolate, villous. Glumes membranous to cartilaginous, usually acute to acuminate, sometimes obtuse, sometimes mucronate, sometimes with long silky hairs; lower glumes 2-keeled, with 2-5 veins; upper glumes about equal in length, with 1-5 veins; lower florets male or sterile; lower lemmas membranous, somewhat shorter than the glumes, glabrous to pilose; lower paleas absent; upper florets bisexual; upper lemmas membranous, ovate to lanceolate, muticous or awned, awns up to 10 mm long; upper paleas variable in size; anthers 3. Pedicellate spikelets similar but lower glumes long hairy, upper glumes glabrous to variously hairy.
Tripidium includes 6 species. They are native from southern Europe to India. The greatest diversity is India. One species Tripidium ravennae, is known from both Somaliland and Somalia.