General:
Perennial, bluish, tufted grass from fibrous roots or short rhizomes; stems 30-180 cm tall, erect or slightly decumbent at the base, the nodes exposed and often covered with dense short hairs.

Leaves:
Sheaths smooth to rough, white-hairy close to the base, often purplish at the stem-base; blades 4-13 mm wide, lax, flat or slightly in-rolled, bluish-green, rough on the nerves, sometimes hairy, ear-shaped lobes at the leaf-bases up to 2.5 mm long, often purple; ligules up to 1 mm long, entire or ragged.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a spike 5-21 cm long, 0.5-2 cm wide, erect to slightly nodding, rarely pendent, (1) 2 to 3 spikelets per node; spikelets 8-25 mm long, purplish, with bases often overlapping, with 2 to 4 (6) fertile florets; glumes 9-14 mm long, unawned or awned, the awns 1-5 mm long; lemmas 9-14 mm long, smooth to short-hairy at least on the nerves, the awns 1-25 mm long, straight to slightly curved; anthers 1.5-3.5 mm long.

Notes:
Two subspecies occur in BC:

1. Lemmas awnless or awned, the awns less than 5 mm long................... ssp. virescens (Piper) Gould

1. Lemmas awned, the awns greater than 5 mm long.................... ssp. glaucus

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Elymus glaucus var. virescens (Piper) Bowden
Elymus virescens Piper