General:
Annual grass from fibrous roots; stems erect, usually more or less short-hairy at the nodes and just below, 20-90 (120) cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths usually open for 1-2 cm, densely soft-hairy, the hairs spreading to slightly angled backwards; blades 2-5 (9) mm wide, flat, hairy; ear-shaped lobes lacking at the leaf-bases; ligules usually hairy, sometimes smooth, jagged and usually more or less fringed with fine hairs, 0.5-1.5 (3) mm long.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a loose panicle, mostly 7-15 (20) cm long, the branches ascending to stiffly spreading but rarely wavy; spikelets 5- to 9- (11-) flowered, flattened, lanceolate, smooth or rough short-hairy, 13-20 mm long, the stalks mostly longer than the spikelets; lower glumes lanceolate, (3) 5-nerved, 5-7 mm long, the upper ones lanceolate, (5-) 7- (9-) nerved, 6-9 mm long; lemmas rough with faint nerves, somewhat compressed from top to bottom, (8) 9-10 (11) mm long, rounded at the tips, bidentate, awned, the awns straight to somewhat abruptly bent, 4-10 mm long; paleas 1-2 mm shorter than the lemmas; anthers mostly included in the lemmas, 1-1.5 (2) mm long.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia