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Perennial, compactly tufted. Culms wiry, erect or decumbent at base, 20–70 cm tall, 1–2 mm in diam., unbranched, 3–4-noded. Leaf sheaths smooth, glabrous; leaf blades up to 15 cm × 1–4 mm, soft, smooth, glabrous, apex finely acute; ligule 0.5–1.5 mm, rounded. Panicle linear-oblong, spikelike, 5–10 × 0.5–0.7 cm, erect or slightly curved; branches very short. Fertile spikelet oblong or wedge-shaped, 3–6 mm, florets 2–5; glumes lanceolate, shorter than florets, 3–4.5 mm, margins membran-ous, back keeled, keel scabrid, apex acuminate or mucronate; lemmas narrowly ovate-oblong, lowest ca. 4 mm, spinescent, apex mucronate; palea slightly shorter than lemma, keels scabrid. Anthers ca. 2 mm. Caryopsis oblong, ca. 2 mm, apex glabrous. Sterile spikelet ovate, composed of up to 18 stiff, narrowly linear, shortly awned empty lemmas with green ciliate keel. Fl. and fr. Jun–Aug. 2n = 14.
Perennial. Culms 18–133 cm high. Leaf blades subulate, 5–36.5 cm long, 1.3–4.3 mm wide, channelled or shallowly grooved. Panicles 2–12 cm long. Sterile spikelets persistent, strongly laterally compressed, incurved, 3.4–5.5 mm long; lemma muticous or apiculate, with margins hyaline, keeled, ciliolate in upper half, with intercostal regions glabrous. Bisexual spikelets broadly elliptic, subsessile to shortly pedicellate, 3.5–6 mm long, with 3–5 bisexual florets; glumes shorter than remainder of spikelet, muticous; lower glume narrowly ovate, 2.8–5.7 mm long, acute, 1 (or 2)-nerved; upper glume narrowly ovate, 3.2–5.1 mm long; basal lemma laterally compressed, 3.4–4.5 mm long, obtuse, membranous, occasionally pigmented; lemma awn apical, 0.2–0.9 mm long. Caryopsis ovoid, terete; hilum elliptic.
Densely tufted perennial 3–8 dm; lvs few, 1–3 mm wide; infl slender, long-exsert, 3–10 cm; spikelets subsessile in short-peduncled pairs; lemmas 3–3.5 mm, short-awned;2n=14. Native of Europe, intr. in fields, roadsides, and waste places nearly throughout our range. C. echinatus L., an annual with lvs 3–9 mm wide and with a subcapitate panicle 1–4 cm, the lemmas with awns 5–10 mm, is adventive in N.Y. and Md. and may be expected elsewhere.
