Annual or biennial; culms erect or rarely ascending from a decumbent base, up to 100 cm high. Leaf-blades greyish-green, up to 20 cm long, 2-7 mm wide; sheaths softly hairy. Panicle 3-16 cm long, greyish-green or purplish, erect and loose at first, afterwards contracted and nodding, the branches clustered. Spikelets narrowly ovate to oblong, 6-12-flowered, 12-22 mm long excluding the awns, the lemmas overlapping and concealing the internodes; glumes pubescent, the lower narrowly elliptic, 5-8 mm long, 3-7-nerved, the upper elliptic, 6-9 mm long, 5-7-nerved; lemmas narrowly elliptic to narrowly ovate in side view, bluntly angled on the margins, the lower 8-11 mm long, herbaceous with narrow hyaline margins, 7-9-nerved, pubescent, minutely 2-toothed at the tip with a straight awn 5-10 mm long from just below the tip; palea shorter than the lemma, ciliolate on the keels; anthers 0.7-15 mm long.

F1 & Fr. Per.: April-July or August.

Type: Europe (LINN).

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab, cultivated in N.W.F.P.); throughout Europe and western Asia; introduced into North and South America, Australia etc.

Soft Brome or Lop Grass is commonly grazed.