Perennial; culms slender to robust, 50-150 cm high, erect, freely branched above. Leaf-blades up to 30 cm long, 3-6 mm wide, acute. Racemes 3-6 cm long, fragile, on long exserted peduncles which are gathered into loose false panicles: internodes and pedicels narrowly clavate, ciliate to densely vinous; spatheoles convolute. Sessile spikelet narrowly lanceolate, 6-8 mm long; lower glume keeled above but merely inflexed below, convex, flat or shallowly concave on the back, glabrous: upper lemma bifid to about the middle; awn 8-15 mm long, the column slightly exserted from the glumes. Pedicelled spikelet reduced, shortly awned. usually spreading on a curved, slender pedicel.

Type: U.S.A., Carolina, Michaux..

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, introduced): Quebec and Maine to Alberta and south to Florida and Arizona.

This widespread North American species is clearly an accidental introduction to Pakistan, although how and when this happened is not known.