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

General:
Perennial, tufted grass from rhizomes; stems usually slightly hairy below the nodes and the inflorescence, mostly 40-80 (100) cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths open, minutely short appressed-hairy; blades stiff, usually smooth on the lower surfaces and minutely rough above, strongly in-rolled, 2-4 mm wide; ear-shaped lobes well-developed, prominent; ligules jagged with fine hairs, less than 1 mm long.

Flowers:
Inflorescence an erect spike, 4-9 (10) cm long, but rarely the lowest pair of spikelets considerably distant and the overall length of the spike up to 15 cm long; spikelets mostly paired, 3- to 5-flowered, unstalked, often purplish, the lowest 1 to 3 pairs usually much shorter than the internodes of the rachis, the upper ones 2 to 3 times as long; glumes very narrow, awl-like, stiff, hairy, nerveless or inconspicuously 1- to 3-nerved, 5-12 mm long, awn-tipped; lemmas long-hairy to appressed-hairy, 7-9 mm long, merely awn-tipped or with awns up to 3 (4) mm long; paleas subequal to the lemmas; anthers about 5 mm long.