Tufted perennial with extensive, wiry rhizomes; culms 30-120 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades usually flat, 6-30 cm long, 3-10 mm wide, glabrous or loosely hairy above. Spike lax or dense, 5-15(-20) cm long, erect and straight; rhachis joints scabrid along the margins. Spikelets 5-7-flowered, 8-17 mm long; glumes subequal, lanceolate to lanceolate-oblong, 5-15 mm long, acute, mucronate or shortly awned, scabrid on the nerves above; lemma lanceolate-oblong, 6-11(-13) mm long, glabrous and smooth, acute, awnless or with a subulate tip, palea nearly as long as the lemma, anthers 3.5-6 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: July-August

Type locality: Europe.

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Europe and temperate Asia; introduced into many temperate countries.