Plants annual or weakly biennial. Culms to 4 m, slender to stout. Rames readily disarticulating at maturity, with 1-5 nodes. Sessile spikelets 5-8 mm, lanceolate to elliptic. Caryopses not exposed at maturity.

Sorghum bicolor subsp. arundinaceum is native to, and most common, in Africa, but some strains have been introduced into the Western Hemisphere.