Habit: 		Annual or winter annual.
Culms: 		1-2 m. tall, erect, usually glaucous, glabrous, or pubescent
                below the spike.
Blades: 	30 cm. long, more or less, 6-13 mm. wide, scabrous, flat, auricled.
Sheaths: 	Usually shorter than the internodes.
Ligule: 	Membranous, about 1 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Spike 10-15 cm. long, dense, 4-angled, more slender than 
                wheat, nodding rachis internodes pubescent on the edges.
Spikelets: 	Usually 2-flowered, or the third rudimentary floret above, 
                solitary at each node,
		alternate, placed flatwise against the rachis.
Glumes: 	Narrow, rigid, wn-pointed, 1-nerved, scabrous on the keel, 
                with one edge toward the rachis.
Lemmas: 	Asymmetrical lanceolate, 5-nerved, sharply keeled, ciliate 
                on the keels and exposed margins, tapering into a long awn.
Fruit: 		Grain slightly compressed laterally, deeply furrowed, free, 
                pubescent at the apex. 
Habitat: 	Waste places, roadsides, and old fields; escaped from cultivation, 
                but not persisting.
Use: 		A cultivated grain, winter pasturage, green feed, green manure, 
                and to a certain extent in public lawn mixtures.
Remarks: 	The common host plant of the fungus, ergot.