General:
Perennial grass from rhizomes; stems hollow, 70-200 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths open, smooth or minutely rough; blades 7-15 mm wide, flat, lax; ligules 3-8 mm long, membranous, hairy, the margins jagged or usually more or less strongly torn.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a large, loose panicle 15-30 cm long, the branches spreading to drooping; spikelets 1-flowered, flattened, articulating below the glumes; florets stalked; glumes (2) 3-4 mm long, slender, 1-nerved, strongly keeled, long-pointed, the upper ones slightly longer than the lower, more or less minutely rough to short-hairy on the keels and often over the back; lemmas 2-3.2 mm long, strongly compressed, short-hairy over the backs, unawned or awned (sometimes in the same panicle), when present the awns subterminal, straight, up to nearly 1 mm long; paleas nearly as long as the lemmas, keeled; rachillas bristlelike, mostly about 0.6 mm long, prolonged behind the paleas; lodicules wedge- to egg-shaped, toothed, about 0.3 mm long; ovaries smooth; anthers about 1 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

Flower Colour:
Yellow

Blooming Period:
Mid Summer

Fruit/Seed characteristics:
Colour: Brown
Present over the Summer

Source:  The USDA