Cool season, annual bunchgrass. Stems few-many-bunched, 10–80 cm. Leaves: blades 4–10 mm wide, flat and lax; sheaths with overlapping margins; ligule membranous. Inflorescences a contracted secund panicle 5–30 cm long. Spikelets with 1 floret, circular, strongly laterally flattened, 2.5–3 mm long; glumes 1 nerved, strongly laterally compressed. Lemmas with an apiculate tip (approaching a very short awn in some spikelets); palea well developed. Disarticulation below glumes; dispersal unit the spikelet (Lavin in
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
Wet meadows, along ditches, streams, and lake banks, often rooted below water level (Lavin in
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).