Habit: 		Annual.
Culms: 		30-100 cm. tall, erect or ascending from a decumbent often creeping base,
		rooting at the nodes, freely branching.
Blades: 	4-20 cm. long, 4-10 mm. wide, more or less papillose-scabrous on both sides,
		occasionally purplish.
Sheaths: 	Shorter than the internodes, loose, the upper less than the lower, densely
		papillose-hirsute.
Ligule: 	Membranous, 2-3 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Composed of 2-10 spikelike racemes 5-18 cm. long, which are disposed in
		whorls, or approximate at the summit of the stems; rachis winged or flat-margined,
		the margin as wide as the central rib.
Spikelets: 	Narrow, nearly planoconvex, acute, 2.5-4 mm. long, 1-flowered, usually
		appressed-pubescent between the smooth or scabrous nerves, in 2's on one side of the
		flat and winged rachis, one of the spikelets subsessile, the other longer-pediceled,
		the pedicel strongly hispidulous, sharply 3- angled.
Glumes: 	First minute, triangular, glabrous; second glume about one half as long as the
		pale or grayish fertile lemma, narrow, ciliate, 3-5-nerved.
Lemmas: 	Sterile lemma strongly nerved, the lateral internerves appressed pubescent
		(at maturity the hairs sometimes spreading), fertile lemma cartilaginous,
		papillose-striate, with a hyaline margin not inrolled.
Fruit: 		Cartilaginous with pale hyaline margins, lanceolate, acutely apiculate with age.
Habitat: 	Waste places, roadsides, and cultivated ground.  June-September.
Use: 		Of some forage value when seeded in pure stands on cropland.
Remarks: 	One of the most common garden and lawn weeds in the state.