General:
Perennial tufted grass from fibrous roots; stems hollow, erect, 40-80 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths open, the upper usually smooth, the lower often short-hairy, the hairs angled downwards; blades 1.5-2.5 mm wide, flat to folded; ligules about 1 (0.8-1.5) mm long, membranous, smooth, the tips blunt and straight, the margins finely jagged and fringed with short hairs.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a much contracted, erect, somewhat curved, spikelike panicle 3-8 cm long, with the flowers and branches borne on one side of the axis; spikelets borne mostly in pairs on very short branches, the pairs each with 1 spikelet fertile, unstalked, the other sterile, 4-5 mm long, short-stalked, much flattened and fanlike, consisting of glumes and 7 to 9 sterile (empty) lemmas; glumes of the fertile spikelets 2.5-3.5 mm long, nearly equal, strongly keeled, rough, the margins broad, membranous and small-toothed, the glumes of the sterile spikelets flattened, somewhat narrower than, but otherwise similar to the sterile lemmas; fertile lemmas about 4 mm long, rounded, rough, the awn tips about 0.5 mm long; lodicules about 0.5 mm long; anthers about 3 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