Vetiveria zizanioides a densely tufted grass, found throughout the plains and lower hills of India, particularly on the river banks and in rich marshy soil, ascending to an altitude of c. 1200 m. Clums arising from an aromatic rhizome, stout, up to and over 2m. tall, in dense tufts, with stout spongy aromatic roots; leaves narrow, erect, keeled, glaborous, margins scabrid; inflorescence a panicle (15-40cm long) of numerous slender racemes in whorls on a central axis; spiklets grey green or purplish, 4-6mm long, in pair more or less alike in shape and size, different in sex, 2-flowered, lower floret reduced to a lemma, upper bisexual in the sessile, male in the pedicelled spiklet, glumes armed with short, tubercle-based spines, lemmas awnless, palea minute.

Vetiveria zizanioides a densely tufted grass, found throughout the plains and lower hills of India, particularly on the river banks and in rich marshy soil, ascending to an altitude of c. 1200 m. Clums arising from an aromatic rhizome, stout, up to and over 2m. tall, in dense tufts, with stout spongy aromatic roots; leaves narrow, erect, keeled, glaborous, margins scabrid; inflorescence a panicle (15-40cm long) of numerous slender racemes in whorls on a central axis; spiklets grey green or purplish, 4-6mm long, in pair more or less alike in shape and size, different in sex, 2-flowered, lower floret reduced to a lemma, upper bisexual in the sessile, male in the pedicelled spiklet, glumes armed with short, tubercle-based spines, lemmas awnless, palea minute.