Habit: 		Dioecious perennial, with long creeping rhizomes.
Culms: 		Somewhat tufted, 30-70 cm. tall, glabrous, sterile shoots with numerous long leaves.
Blades: 	Few on the culms, 7-15 cm. long, 3-6 mm. wide; numerous on the sterile shoots, up to
		25 cm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, flat or involute, ending in a boat-shaped tip.
Sheaths: 	Long, more or less flattened, loose.
Ligule: 	Membranous, about 1 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle rather light greenish, mostly long exserted, dense and narrow, 5-16 cm.
		long, 1-4 cm. wide, occasionally interrupted below, with ascending crowded branches,
		spikelet-bearing to the base.
Spikelets: 	Variable, 5-7 mm. long, usually 3-7-flowered, flat, short pedicelled, rachis
		articulate between the florets; the pistillate conspicuously cobwebby, the staminate
		glabrous or with a scant web.
Glumes: 	2, greenish, acute, hispidulous on the keel, the first about 2.5-3.5 mm. long,
		1-nerved, narrow, the second about 3.5-4.5 mm. long, 3-nerved, broader.
Lemmas: 	Pistillate lemmas 4.5-6 mm. long, 5-nerved, acuminate, copiously long webby
		at the base, the strongly compressed keel and lateral nerves ciliate-fringed on the lower half.  Staminate lemmas glabrous or with a scant web at base.
Palea: 		Shorter than the lemma, 2-keeled and 2-nerved.
Fruit: 		Grain or caryopsis.
Habitat: 	Grassy valleys.