Japan Flora: Glabrous perennial with short rhizomes and short ascending stolons; culms tufted, 50-100 cm. long; leaf-blades flat, 3-6 mm. wide, glaucous green; ligules membranous, truncate, 1-2 mm. long; panicles cylindric, 5-8 cm. long, 7-10 mm. wide, very dense with very short branches; spikelets slightly lustrous; glumes membranous, narrowly ovate, 3-nerved, obtuse; lemmas shorter than the glumes, narrowly ovate, glabrous, smooth, the keel scabrous above, the awn from near base on back, 6-10 mm. long, slender, only very slighdy geniculate. May-June.

Cultivated for forage and widely naturalized in Japan. Eurasia, N. Africa, now widely naturalized in temperate regions.