Tufted perennial; culms 4-65 cm high, erect to decumbent. Leaf-blades flat or convolute, 2-10 cm long, 1.5-4 mm wide, green or glaucous, scabrid above. Panicle narrowly to broadly ovate or pyramidal, 3-18 cm long, usually very loose and open, the branches bare in the lower part, smooth to coarsely scabrid, eventually deflexed. Spikelets 3-7 mm long, 3-9-flowered, green or tinged with purple, sometimes variegated with white or yellow; glumes ovate to elliptic, blunt, the lower 0.5-1.5 mm long, 1-nerved, the upper 1-2.5 mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas 2-25 mm long, broadly oblong-elliptic, very blunt, minutely hairy at the base, the nerves not reaching the tip; palea keels minutely hairy; anthers (0.5-) 0.8-1 mm long.

Lower Taxa

• Puccinellia distans subsp. distans
• Puccinellia distans subsp. glauca (Regel) Tzvelev

Related Synonym(s):

• Atropis glauca (Regel) Krecz. = Puccinellia distans subsp. glauca (Regel) Tzvelev
• Glyceria distans var. glauca Regel = Puccinellia distans subsp. glauca (Regel) Tzvelev