The hollow stems are decumbent and creeping and root easily where their nodes contact the substrate.

[3][5][9] The leaf sheath has a fleshy base covered in white hairs and the ligule can be stiff and dry,[3] becoming "papery".

[6] Fertile seed is rarely produced and the grass commonly reproduces vegetatively by sprouting from the rhizome or the nodes on the stem.

It can be found in marshes, swamps, ponds, irrigation ditches, flooded rice fields, and on other moist agricultural land and floodplains.

[10] In Tanzania it is a dominant plant in the swamps where the shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) and wattled crane (Bugeranus carunculatus) build their nests.

[11] On the Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela it is the second most important food of the resident herds of capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), composing up to 29% of their diet.

[12] The grass is a weed of several crops, including tea, rubber, maize, and sugarcane, but especially rice.

[6] This species is a hyperaccumulator of heavy metals, with the ability to take up large amounts of chromium, copper, and nickel from water and soil.

[15] Targets could include industrial wastewater, such as that discharged from electroplating factories,[14] and the contaminated soils around such facilities.