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

General:
Perennial, strongly tufted grass from fibrous roots; stems hollow, erect, up to 150 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths closed, more or less compressed, smooth to slightly rough; blades (2) 3-11 mm wide, flat, mostly somewhat rough, usually the 2 margins freed from the sheaths at different levels; ligules mostly 3-9 mm long, membranous, generally sparsely hairy, blunt to pointed, the margins finely jagged, fringed with small hairs, the upper halves usually turned back and split in several places.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a panicle 3-15 cm long, the branches stiffly ascending to spreading or even reflexed (the lower ones); spikelets strongly to one side in dense clusters, compressed, 3- to 5-flowered, 5-9 mm long, nearly unstalked, articulating above the glumes; glumes 4-6 mm long, keeled, the keels fringed with stiff hairs, usually 2 (3)-nerved, the tips short, soft and awnlike, the lower glumes lopsided, the upper narrower and usually 1-nerved; lemmas 5-8 mm long, keeled, the keels fringed with hairs above, awned, the awns about 1 mm long; paleas nearly equal to the lemmas, long-pointed, nerved, the nerves fringed with short hairs; lodicules short, membranous, scarcely 0.5 mm long; anthers about 4 mm long.