It is a highly flammable pyrophyte, and can spread rapidly by colonizing disturbed areas and encouraging more frequent wildfires.

[4] The species is most commonly known in English as "cogongrass" (also "cogon grass"),[3] from Spanish cogón, from the Tagalog and Visayan kugon.

[7] They were renamed by the French entomologist and botanist Palisot de Beauvois to the current accepted name of Imperata cylindrica.

Cogongrass grows from 0.2–3 m (1⁄2–10 ft) tall, its stalk is firm and has nodes covered with long white hairs.

[8] Its flowers small and gathered on pedicels 0.5–3 mm long from narrow panicles slightly above its stalks that grow tall as high as 28 cm.

[11] The plant has become naturalized in the Americas, Northern Asia, Europe and Africa in addition to many islands and is listed as an invasive weed in some areas.

In the United States it survives best in the Southeast (and, according to a 2003 survey, has overtaken more acreage in that region than the notorious kudzu),[12] but has been reported to exist as far north as West Virginia and Oregon.

Quarantine and extermination of this plant is especially difficult because cogongrass establishes root systems as deep as four feet, and regrowth can be triggered by rhizome segments as small as one inch.

[14] Cogongrass is difficult to contain mainly because it is highly adaptive to harsher environments, establishing itself on soils low in fertility.

The legume vine Mucuna pruriens is used in the countries of Benin and Vietnam as a biological control for Imperata cylindrica.

[4][28][29][10] It is regarded as an excellent plant for thatching the roofs of traditional homes throughout south-east Asia, and is even grown as a crop for this purpose.

[31] A number of cultivars have been selected for garden use as ornamental plants, including the red-leaved 'Red Baron', also known as Japanese blood grass.