Annual 2-6 dm; culms glabrous; sheaths and blades softly villous, the latter 3-6 mm wide; ligule 0.5-1.5(-2) mm; infl 6-15 cm, loose and open, tending to be nodding and secund, the slender branches often bearing only a single spikelet nearly or fully as long; spikelets somewhat flattened, lanceolate to ovate, 8-15-fld, 15-30 mm, to 13 mm wide; glumes broad, obtuse, several-veined, the first 5-8 mm, the second 6-9 mm; lemmas 9-12 mm, 7- or 9-veined, glabrous or minutely puberulent, very obtuse, somewhat inflated at base, 2.5-4 mm wide on a side; awn to 1 mm, or none; palea evidently shorter than the lemma; anthers scarcely 1 mm; 2n=14. Native of sw. Asia, sparingly intr. throughout most of the U.S. except in the south.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
