General:
Annual or biennial grass from fibrous roots; stems smooth or soft-hairy, (10) 20-70 cm tall.

Leaves:
Lower sheaths densely soft-hairy (the hairs angled downward) to woolly, the upper ones hairy to smooth; blades mostly 1.5-4 mm wide, flat; ear-shaped lobes lacking at the leaf-bases; ligules usually hairy, sometimes smooth, finely jagged with fine hairs, 0.5-1 (1.5) mm long.

Flowers:
Inflorescence an erect, narrow, crowded panicle, soft-hairy to smooth, 3-10 cm long; spikelets 5- to 7- (9-) flowered, slightly compressed, 10-20 mm long; florets mostly small, closed, self-fertilizing; spikelet stalks usually shorter than the spikelets; lower glumes lanceolate, 3- to 5- nerved, 4.5-9 mm long, the upper ones egg-shaped to lanceolate, 5- to 7-nerved, 6-9 mm long; lemmas papery with prominent nerves, somewhat compressed from top to bottom, 6.5-11 mm long, rounded at the tips, bidentate, awned, the awns straight, 6-10 mm long; paleas from nearly equal to the lemmas to 1-1.5 (rarely 2) mm shorter; anthers (0.5) 1.5-2 mm long, but sometimes 2.5-3 mm long and exserted.

Notes:
Two subspecies are recognized in BC:

1. Lemmas 6.5-7.5 mm long; lower and upper glumes 4.5-6 mm and 6-6.6 mm long, respectively........................ ssp. thominei (Hardham ex Nyman) Braun-Blanquet

1. Lemmas 8-11 mm long; lower and upper glumes (6) 7-9 mm and (7) 8-9 mm, respectively............................ ssp. hordeaceus.

The hybrid B. hordeaceus ssp. hordeaceus x B. lepidus Holmberg (B. x pseudothominei P.M. Sm.) noted by Pavlick (1995) appears to be infrequent on S Vancouver Island and elsewhere in S BC and is difficult to distinguish from ssp. hordeaceus.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia