General:
Perennial grass from fibrous roots; stems curved, ascending, hollow, 10-70 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths open, keeled, more or less short stiff-hairy, the margins thin and transparent; blades 2-6 mm wide, 3-12 cm long, abruptly contracted at the tops, greyish- to bluish-green; ligules 5-7 mm long.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a narrow, more or less spikelike panicle, 5-25 cm long, contracted in fruit, with all branches borne on 1 side of the axis, the branches 1 to 3 at the central panicle nodes, smooth, the longer branches with 1 to 6 spikelets, the shorter branches with 1 (2) spikelet; spikelets 5- to 7-flowered, narrowly oblong, lax, greyish-green or purplish, 15-20 mm long; lower glumes 1.5-2.5 mm long, egg-shaped, nearly to quite sharp-pointed, the upper ones 2.5-4 mm long, elliptical, nearly blunt; lemmas prominently 7-nerved, cylindrical to egg-shaped, 3.5-4.5 mm long, rough, narrowly translucent, with 3 to 5 distinct, blunt or sharp-pointed teeth at the tips; paleas lanceolate, deeply cleft at the tips into 2, somewhat divergent, awl-tipped teeth, distinctly exceeding the lemmas; stamens 3; anthers 0.6-1.1 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