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

General:
Perennial, tufted grass from fibrous roots; stems 30-80 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths open, the lower ones smooth to somewhat long-hairy or soft-hairy; blades soft-hairy on the upper surfaces, flat, 2-5 (10) mm wide; ear-shaped lobes at the leaf-bases slender, about 1 mm long; ligules jagged and more or less fringed with fine hairs, scarcely 1 mm long.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a dense, more or less cylindrical spike, 6-10 cm long, the rachis smooth or hairy, spikelets closely graduated but greater than 1 mm between them, appressed, forming an angle of less than 30degree with the rachis, mostly 5- to 7- (8-) flowered, (5) 7-12 (15) mm long, separated by rachis internodes (1.5) 2.5-3.5 (5) mm long; glumes 5-7 mm long, short-awned; lemmas 6-8.5 mm long, sharp-pointed or short-awned, the awns less than 1 mm long.