General Description:  A summer or winter annual that ranges in habit from clump-forming to erect to spreading.

Seedling:  The first leaf blade is linear and opens perpendicular to the ground.  Leaves are rolled in the bud, lack auricles, and have a membranous ligule that is delicately fringed at the top.  Young leaf blades are twisted and appear to be spiraling upward.  Blades have soft, short, dense hairs on both surfaces.  Rounded sheaths have similar hairs and are whitish with a tinge of red at the base.

Mature Plant: Leaves and ligule are similar to those of the seedling.  Blades are flat, hairy on both surfaces, and sharply pointed.  Sheaths are rounded, hairy, and have prominent pinkish veins.

Flowers and Fruit:  Flowers are produced between May and July.  The seedhead is a drooping, dense, soft, purplish panicle.  Spikelets are 3 to 8 flowered with long awns.  The yellow to reddish-brown seed is grooved.

Distribution:  Found throughout the United States, except the Southeast.

Crops Affected:  Wheat

Animal Poisoning:  None

Similar Species: Cheat is smooth or with occasional hairs on the blades and the lower sheaths.  The awns of cheat are shorter than those of downy brome.  Common velvetgrass has a coat of dense hairs on the blades and leaves, but differs from downy brome in that the back of the ligule is hairy in mature plants, sheaths are compressed, and the blades of young plants are not twisted.