E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Annual, tufted grass from fibrous roots; stems often decumbent and freely rooting below (especially in standing water), 50-70 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths open; blades usually flat, rough, (1) 4-7 (12) mm wide; ligules strongly short rough-hairy externally, (2) 3-10 (12) mm long, narrowed to blunt or squared-off, irregularly jagged.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a dense, spikelike panicle, (1) 2-15 cm long; glumes rough, tawny in age, 2-3.5 mm long, awned from between very short rounded lobes, the awns 6-10 mm long; lemmas 1, smooth and shining, about half as long as the glumes, minutely toothed at the rounded tips, awned, the awns slender, exceeding the glumes by as much as 1.5 mm; paleas nearly equal to the lemmas; lodicules lanceolate, about 0.2 mm long; anthers about 0.5 mm long.